A biography is never a biography of one person, of course, but the individual life of your protagonist will never conform. It will always bang up against history.

For me the fascination with biography is the life of the individual in the context of history.

Eleanor [Marx] was involved in the 1889 Paris congress resolution that established May Day as an annual demonstration of the international solidarity of labour in the demand for a legal eight-hour day.

We're all story-telling creatures, and also I think that's the point about biography because the life is exemplary.

One of the key things about the entitlement and power of patriarchy, but also within feminism, is not that it's wilful nastiness. But you can't ask for permission. You can negotiate and you can bring people on board and you can build a base but you can't expect for it to be given.

The great difficulty is that you cannot be nice. If you want to take back the power, you have to behave in ways that are not conforming and will not be about pleasing other people.

People don't give up power and privilege out of the goodness of their hearts.