I loved Gore Vidal's Burr. That book gave me courage.

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

He turns to the painting. "I fear Mark was right." "Who is Mark?" "A silly little boy who runs after George Boleyn. I once heard him say I looked like a murderer." Gregory says, "Did you not know?

For what's the point of breeding children, if each generation does not improve on what went before.

When people begin to talk about "our island story" my hackles rise. It is deluded and conservative.

Once you're labeled as mentally ill, and that's in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artefact of your mental illness.

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.