[Margaret Thatcher] was always talking about what the prudent housewife should do and what the prudent housewife knew.

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.

Insights don't usually arrive at my desk, but go into notebooks when I'm on the move. Or half-asleep.

The worship of Thomas More goes beyond Catholics.

People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.

I was the subject of an experiment in love. I lived my life under her gaze, undergoing certain trials for her so that she would not have to undergo them for herself. But, how are our certainties forged, except by the sweat and tears of other people? If your parents don't teach you how to live; you learn it from books; and clever people watch you learn from your mistakes.

I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.