I Am Not A Historian. I Don't

[margaret Thatcher] Said There Was No Thing Such As Society. This Is What I Find So Interesting Psychologically. Where Did She Come From? She Had No Mother. Her Father Came From A Very Identifiable Background: Religious, Highly Conformist.

When You Become Published And Become A Reviewer, Piles Of Books Come Along And You Are Pushed By Fashion And What You Are Commissioned To Do.

You're Only Young Once, They Say, But Doesn't It Go On For A Long Time? More Years Than You Can Bear.

When I Began To Read As An Adult, I Read Almost Exclusively Novelists Of A Generation Back. I Did The Russians, Then I Started Getting More Up To Date. When You Become Published And Become A Reviewer, Piles Of Books Come Along And You Are Pushed By Fashion And What You Are Commissioned To Do.

He Once Thought It Himself, That He Might Die With Grief: For His Wife, His Daughters, His Sisters, His Father And Master The Cardinal. But Pulse, Obdurate, Keeps Its Rhythm. You Think You Cannot Keep Breathing, But Your Ribcage Has Other Ideas, Rising And Falling, Emitting Sighs. You Must Thrive In Spite Of Yourself; And So That You May Do It, God Takes Out Your Heart Of Flesh, And Gives You A Heart Of Stone.