I am not a historian. I don't see what I do as being a rival to biography.

It's complementary. It's fairly clear where the boundaries are. When I start telling you the contents of his head, I am making it up. But I try to make it up based on what is on the record. So even my wildest speculations [on Thomas Cromwell] will have a root somewhere.

I think the monarchy today is. . . mildly interesting and largely harmless. I can't find I can get very heated about it. In the next couple of generations, it is bound to go.

If I am feeling broken, I can pick up one of [Ivy Compton-Burnett] books and the next morning I can write again. It puts my mechanism back.

You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.

God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone.

I do myself think that history is a set of skills rather than a narrative.