History Is A Set Of Skills Rather

I Only Became A Novelist Because I Thought I Had Missed My Chance To Become A Historian.

One Of The Ideals [margaret Thatcher] Grew Up With Was Self-denial And Postponement Of Gratification, And Yet She Went About To Create A Greedy, Short-term Society. It Is A Paradox.

Those Who Are Made Can Be Unmade.

Fiction Isn't Made By Scraping The Bones Of Topicality For The Last Shreds And Sinews, To Be Processed Into Mechanically Recovered Prose. Like Journalism, It Deals In Ideas As Well As Facts, But Also In Metaphors, Symbols And Myths.

The More Facts I Can Have, The Better. I Can Operate Very Nicely Between Them, But I Am Not Very Good At Making Things Up. I Am Not Sure How Ethical It Is.