Over The City Lies The

What Is It We Are Hating? It Goes Beyond Politics. I Suppose That My Fascination With [margaret Thatcher] Is Not Just With Her Political Record But With Her As A Phenomenon.

When I Came To Write My Thomas Cromwell Books, I Moved Onto The Center Ground Of English History, But I Was Never There Before. I Didn't Feel It Was My History Particularly, Coming From Northern Britain, Being Of Irish Extraction, Being A Cradle Catholic. The Image Of England I Grew Up With Felt Somewhere Else. There Was An Official England In Postcards, But It Wasn't One I Had Visited. But I Decided To March Onto The Center Ground And Occupy It Whether It Was Mine Or Not.

Memory Isn't A Theme; It's Part Of The Human Condition.

I Once Stole A Book. It Was Really Just The Once, And At The Time I Called It Borrowing. It Was 1970, And The Book, I Could See By Its Lack Of Date Stamps, Had Been Lying Unappreciated On The Shelves Of My Convent School Library Since Its Publication In 1945.

In Terms Of Essays, I Would Say Oliver Sacks. His Breadth Of Hard Knowledge And Imagination And Empathy Seems To Constitute The Perfect Mind To Me.