Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older.

I come out of an academic background, and I'm aware that what I'm doing is simultaneously research and fiction. I want to meet both those obligations.

I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine.

I remember a period where my publisher said to me, 'Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.'

I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it.

I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot.

I'm constantly saying, 'I read a fascinating article in 'The New Yorker'... ' I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate 'The New Yorker.'

I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature.

Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world.

One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own.

Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.

There's no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance.

You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style.

You know, plenty of people headed off to Canada or America on the basis of government information, propaganda campaigns. Often you'd go off with a brochure in hand and you'd turn up and it wouldn't be like that at all.

For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have.

I tend to be so lost in the work that I don't notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, 'Beautiful day, wasn't it?' and I'll say, 'Was it?' as I won't have noticed the real world at all.

A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.

Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent.

Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, 'There's a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!'

I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga.