Quotes from Antonia Fraser

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

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.

Of course there's no such thing as a totally objective person, except Almighty God, if she exists.

Her imperturbable self-confidence (Duchesse de Maine) caused Madame de Stael to write that the Duchesse believed in herself the same way she believed in God, without explanation or discussion.

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

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

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

My mother was a politician in my formative years.

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

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

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

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

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

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 have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all." - Marie Antoinette

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

In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.

As the Dauphine stepped out of her carriage on to the ceremonial carpet that had been laid down, it was the Duc de Choiseul who was given the privilege of the first salute. Presented with the Duc by Prince Starhemberg, Marie Antoinette exclaimed: 'I shall never forget that you are responsible for my happiness!

Darnley, who, like Banquo's ghost, seemed to play a much more effective part in Scottish politics once he was dead than when he was alive.

It lies in humanity's infinite capacity for self-deception where some perceived (and in this case long-desired) advantage is at stake

The real work of destruction had been done long before by satire, libel and rumour; Marie Antoinette had become dehumanized. The actual assault by a body of people inspiring each other with their bloodthirsty frenzy was the culmination of the process, not the start of it.

Kings who become prisoners are not far from death.

the deep division that exists in the human race, regardless of any other more obvious distinction, between those for whom books are an obsession, and those who are prepared, good-humouredly enough, to tolerate their existence.

Mignon' said the King, 'soon you are going to be a great king'. But he also told Anjou, in a memorable phrase 'Try to remain at peace with your neighbors: I have loved war too much...