“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set d...”

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

“We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.”

“How do I define history? It's just one fucking thing after another”