Although some people think I am a romantic novelist I have always thought of myself as a rather gritty radical historian.

I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult. And you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be! What man can resist us?

I would be very, very uncomfortable at teaching, at dreaming to teach, people things.

Fortune's wheel takes you very high and then throws you very low, and there is nothing you can do but face the turn of it with courage.

But I don't forget and I don't forgive.

...Your trouble, William, is that you have no ambition. You don't see that there is in life only ever one goal.' 'And what is that?' More', George said simply. 'Just more of anything. More of everything.

Edward lives as if there is no tomorrow, Richard as if he wants no tomorrow, and George as though someone should give it to him for free.