The worship of Thomas More goes beyond Catholics.

[Margaret Thatcher] was pretending that running a country was like running a household, which she knew wasn't true.

When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.

Every leader operates under the threat of assassination.

There's a feeling of power in reserve, a power that drives right through the bone, like the shiver you sense in the shaft of an axe when you take it into your hand. You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.

Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.

He turns to the painting. "I fear Mark was right." "Who is Mark?" "A silly little boy who runs after George Boleyn. I once heard him say I looked like a murderer." Gregory says, "Did you not know?