In the old days, spies had done they'd done because they loved their country, because they believed in what they were doing. But he'd never been given a choice. Nowadays, spies weren't employed. They were used.

I vividly remember being 14. That was the age when I started to get happy: I started being a writer and stopped being a loser.

You don't need to be able to string a sentence together in a way that is elegant or even vaguely meaningful to produce a bestseller - as Dan Brown has demonstrated time and again.

For all men are equal at the moment of death and who are we to judge them when a much greater judge awaits?

No offense, but I'd rather kiss the horse.

My father was aloof, very strange and very distant.

My perfect reader doesn't just read - he or she devours books.