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.

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

'Show up at the desk' is one of the first rules of writing, but for 'Wolf Hall' I was about 30 years late.

Much historical fiction that centers on real people has always been deficient in information, lacking in craft and empty in affect.

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?

[Margaret Thatcher] admitted to being the daughter of her father but not the daughter of her mother!

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