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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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

I decided as usual that justice lay in the middle - that is to say nowhere.

Those who say – “I need Motivation” will never create Inspiration that will take them to their Destination.

Love is the only way to go toward happiness.

Happiness is.. when someone says I am happy for you.

The weakest among us has a gift however seemingly trivial which is peculiar to him and which worthily used will be a gift also to his race.

Not the absorption capacity of the land, but the creative ability of a people, is the true yardstick with which we can measure the immigration potentialities of the land.

I wasn't Santa in Santa Jr., but I was Santa in Cancel Christmas.

The limits of prudence: one cannot jump out of a burning building gradually.

On me, on me Time and change can heap no more! The painful past with blighting grief Hath left my heart a withered leaf. Time and change can do no more.

Winning is what happens when commitment, desire, talent, preparation, hard work, and leadership all come together.

A witty quote proves nothing.