Cravats grow higher, as if they mean to protect the throat. The highest cravats in public life will be worn by Citizen Antoine Saint-Just, of the National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. In the dark and harrowing days of '94, an obscene feminine inversion will appear: a thin crimson ribbon, worn round a bare white neck.

So many years of preparation, for what was called adult life: was it for this?

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.

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

I'm a very organised and rational and linear thinker and you have to stop all that to write a novel.

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

It is better not to try people, not to force them to desperation. Make them prosper; out of superfluidity, they will be generous. Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.