When I was thin, I had no notion of what being fat is like. When I worked in a department store, I had sold clothes to women of most sizes, so I should have known; but perhaps you have to experience the state from the inside, to understand what fat is like.

Much historical fiction that centers on real people has always been deficient in information, lacking in craft and empty in affect.

In terms of essays, I would say Oliver Sacks. His breadth of hard knowledge and imagination and empathy seems to constitute the perfect mind to me.

The worship of Thomas More goes beyond Catholics.

Memory isn't a theme; it's part of the human condition.

I think if the monarchy were removed tomorrow, it wouldn't have a huge effect on the national mind-set.

I spend a lot of my time talking to the dead, but since I get paid for it, no one thinks I'm mad.