If you're a writer, you're always working.

Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said

You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.

I invented the historical spy novel.

I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.

Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It's where it all began and ended.

Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying