Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation... Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.

What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.

Then you start another book and suddenly the galley proofs of the last one come in and you have to wrench your attention away from what you're writing and try to remember what you were thinking when you wrote the previous one.

At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.

I'm fortunate that the books sell, but even more fortunate to live in Chatham, to be very happily married and to have, on the whole, a fairly clear conscience.

A man does not see where he treads in battle, for he is watching the enemy.