I'm always the one with the activist friends. I've been an activist very little.

I did not know that history is like a blood stain that keeps on showing on the wall no matter how many new owners take possession, no matter how many times we pint over it.

I don't think you have the right to shout about other people's private life.

I don't separate my books into historical novels and the rest. To me, they're all made-up worlds, and both kinds are borne out of curiosity, some investigation into the past.

If you ever read one of my books I hope you'll think it looks so easy. In fact, I wrote those chapters 20 times over, and over, and over, and that if you want to write at a good level, you'll have to do that too.

To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.