I believe that, by and large, people are good and everybody you meet is more likely to surprise you in a positive way than in a negative way.

Oh-do be careful with that! That's my Buddha hand grenade. Twist the head twice and throw it and anyone within ten yards can say their prayers.

My greatest fear is disappointing the reader, so each book has to be better than the one before.

He died fighting for what he believed in.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right.

The platform underneath the balloon fell on her as she was trying to escape," she explained. "She was crushed." "I'd have been disappointed too.

Statues lined the stairs and stood, dotted across the roof. But they had been brutalized by time and the weather. Some were missing arms. Many had no faces. Once they had been saints and angels. Two hundred years standing in London had turned them into cripples.