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

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!

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

I love hearing details of writers' craft, as cannibals eat the brains of clever men to get cleverer.

I sail on the ocean of possibilities with the wind of hope and the current of desires moving me to the shore of uncertainty.

There is no growth without risk. There is always something to be gained from any experience. It is up to us to interpret our truth of self.

School was a waste of time for me. I was bored and left at 16. I started taking correspondence courses at college instead. I did incredibly well. I won an award for my grades.

In the life of the Indian there is only one inevitable duty-the duty of prayer-the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal. Our daily devotions were more necessary to us than daily food.

They have a kind of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby thing going on.

The greatest success goes to the person who is not afraid to fail in front of even the largest audience.

I believe in the difference between men and women. In fact, I embrace the difference.

Comparison leads to violence.

I think when you play a role, you always have to be a defense attorney for that character.

I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can't stand that.