[H]ope takes you by the throat like a stranger, it makes your heart leap..

[Margaret Thatcher] was always talking about what the prudent housewife should do and what the prudent housewife knew..

[Margaret] Thatcher could fake her class background, but she couldn't fake the quality of her mind..

I am very happy in second-hand bookshops; would a gardener not be happy in a garden?.

For many imaginative writers, working for the press is a fact of their life. But it's best not to like it too much..

History is a set of skills rather than a narrative..

[Margaret Thatcher] admitted to being the daughter of her father but not the daughter of her mother!.

I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing all along.'.

She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'" "He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful..

It is almost a joke, but a joke that nobody tells..

One of the frustrations of someone like Thomas Cromwell is that, before they step into the light of history, and become extremely well documented, th….

To my astonishment, when Wolf Hall came out, people asked if I made it up - [Thomas More] burning of heretics. It was well documented. And he was pro….

You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook..

This was an idea peculiar to Camille, Maximilien thought, that the worse things get, the better they get. No one else seems to think this way..

God takes out your heart of flesh, and gives you a heart of stone..

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, ob….

History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it..

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 ….

Sometimes peace looks like war, you cannot tell them apart..

Imagination only comes when you privilege the subconscious, when you make delay and procrastination work for you..

Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories..