None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

I strike up conversations all the time and it is very interesting, finding out about things I know nothing about.

I don't know if I have a voice of my own. I don't see me being an important person with something to say. I haven't. I've got nothing to say. My opinion is of no consequence or value.

It sometimes seems to me that the whole course of English history was one of accident, confusion, chance and unintended consequences - there's no real pattern.

Familial love can find an echo in our own hearts just as it did in that of Charles Dickens.

I never read in bed, only in my study.

I think biography can be more personal than fiction, and certainly can be more expressive.