Florence and Milan had given him ideas more flexible than those of people who'd stayed at home.

She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'" "He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.

I am not a historian. I don't see what I do as being a rival to biography.

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

I didn't cry much after I was 35, but staggered stony-faced into middle age, a handkerchief still in my bag just in case.

Hindsight is the historian's necessary vice.

He thinks, I remembered you, Thomas More, but you didn't remember me. You never even saw me coming.