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

I loved Gore Vidal's Burr. That book gave me courage.

The word 'however' is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen, and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one.

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

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

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Valmy and in a halfdozen actions since. In the National Assembly he was a liberal; now he is a republican. Isn't it then logical that he should be thrown into gaol, July 1, on suspicion of passing military secrets to the enemy?