I think there's a tremendous split between people who've been through a war and people who haven't.

The clue to book jacket photography is to look friendly and approachable, but not too glamorous.

If I write that it was a cold day, you can be sure I know it was a cold day because Pepys told us.

We are privileged. There are poor people out there. We must to do something to make them privileged.

I have no plans for a future Jemima Shore mystery, but would write one tomorrow if a good idea came to me.

After Mary Queen of Scots, I turned to the farthest subject possible: Cromwell.

Mary Queen of Scots was my first love, and that is always something special.

Ninety-seven is my lucky number.

I think there's a tremendous split between people who've been through a war and people who haven't.

The concentration in my book on Marie Antoinette's childhood and on her family influences. It is surprising how some books actually start with her arrival in France!

I think crime writing is my link with trying to preserve a sort of order.

I'm very interested in good and evil and the moral natures of people.

My mother was a politician in my formative years.

Normally I make myself swim, do exercises. For zest I like going to the cinema.

I don't like it, but this afternoon I've told myself I am going to go and get a dress.

My advantage as a woman and a human being has been in having a mother who believed strongly in women's education. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford, and her own mother was a doctor.

I'm glad I was never an heiress.

People in my books tend to get their just deserts, even if not at the hands of the police.

Lives in previous centuries for women are largely a matter of class. It would have been fun to have been a rich, privileged woman in the 18th century, but no fun at all to be her maid.

As long as you persecute people, you will actually throw up terrorism.

I hate the only one of my book jackets when I was made up professionally, my hair made into a smooth bell.

I think mine is the fullest and most plausible account of what went on in Marie Antoinette's life.

My mother, who was quite sharp when I was young, became utterly mild.

It can be a long gap between the emergence of fully researched historical biographies.

I realize that I had always in my heart of hearts planned to write a biography of Marie Antoinette.

I think there has been a great deal of valuable revisionism in women's history.

I can't read historical fiction because I find the real thing so much more interesting.

I am re-reading Henry James as a change from history. I began with Daisy Miller, and I've just finished Washington Square. What a brilliant, painful book.

King Charles II liked women's company and well as making love to them.

That is my major concern: writers who are in prison for writing.

There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.

DJs and people in the street know what they like.

People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.

Some people are directors and I think they should stay behind the camera.

We dominated Survivor - there is no way we would not dominate that, too. I can see it already, us making deals with people. That's the best part, and with the Race, it would be even more fun because I've got a lot of tricks up my sleeve.

I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.

We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.

Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.

Well concerning the world records that I did, I think it helps a lot to me, yeah. I think it's a very individual thing because I heard some people say, like, oh I don't like it at all. But I definitely, for me it really made a big difference.

My goal is, of course, for this show to do well, and I would love it if people liked it.

I hate wasting people's time.

Religions get lost as people do.

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

My theory is if you have a religion, it's a good one. Because some people don't have any at all.

It's sometimes shocking to find out what people really believe in.