History is a set of skills rather than a narrative.

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.

People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.

[H]ope takes you by the throat like a stranger, it makes your heart leap.

I can't think of any male politician who magnetizes love and hate - mainly hate - the way [Margaret Thatcher] did.

Fear of commitment lies behind the fear of writing.

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