As A Londoner I Was Able To

And When I Was Young, Did I Ever Tell You, I Always Wanted To Get Inside A Book And Never Come Out Again? I Loved Reading So Much I Wanted To Be A Part Of It, And There Were Some Books I Could Have Stayed In For Ever.

The 16th-century Theatre Witnessed The Particularly English Manifestation Of 'the History Play.' There Can Be No Doubt That Shakespeare's Presentations Of 'henry V' And 'richard Iii' Have Been Incalculably More Influential Than Any More Sober Historical Study.

Bigotry Does Not Consort Easily With Free Trade.

Why Should A Novelist Not Also Be A Historian? To Force Unnatural Divisions Within The English Language Is To Work Against Its Capacious And Accommodating Nature. To Expect A Writer To Produce Only Novels, Or Only Histories, Is Equivalent To Demanding From A Composer That He Or She Write Only String Quartets Or Piano Sonatas.

I Don't In Any Sense Think Of Myself As A Celebrity, Which Of Course I'm Not.