If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.

I just love the days when you come out of the archives with half a dozen excellent descriptions or poignant accounts of personal experiences.

When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.

The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime.

It was only after five years in the army, when I was having to do a very boring job in a very boring place, that I thought: 'Why not try writing a novel?' partly out of youthful arrogance and partly because there had been a long line of writers in my mother's family.

I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.

The great European dream was to diminish militant nationalism. We would all be happy Europeans together. But we are going to see the old monster of militant nationalism being awoken when people realise how little control their politicians have.