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

[Margaret Thatcher] said there was no thing such as society. This is what I find so interesting psychologically. Where did she come from? She had no mother. Her father came from a very identifiable background: religious, highly conformist.

I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian.

I am very happy in second-hand bookshops; would a gardener not be happy in a garden?

I am sure that all politicians seek the home connection with the voter. But [Margaret Thatcher] carried it to extremes.

It is almost a joke, but a joke that nobody tells.

You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it's like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you're thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws.