History is a set of skills rather than a narrative.
I am very happy in second-hand bookshops; would a gardener not be happy in a garden?
History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?
I think it is going to take another fifty years for the report to be in. If I were to give a preliminary report, I would say that [Margaret Thatcher] wrecked this country.
I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian.