I will get into trouble, I am sure, because since my Kate Middleton speech and before, certain papers were after me. I am not saying, however, that it would have been moral or right to assassinate Mrs. [Margaret] Thatcher, but I know it will be read that way. I know it will cause a problem.

History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.

Florence and Milan had given him ideas more flexible than those of people who'd stayed at home.

But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.

My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.

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

So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?