The inevitable effect of a biographer's hindsight is to belittle the subject's foresight.

If the humanism that makes civilization civilized is to be preserved into the new century, it will need advocates. These advocates will need a memory, and part of that memory will need to be of an age in which they were not yet alive.

Jack Aubrey is a tremendous tower of strength and you always want to read about him.

Almost 70 years have gone by, and I've still got that feeling when I write... Writing, for me, is still it. It has always been the basis of everything I do. I'm a writer who performs, not a performer who writes. I love the act of writing. It's still a thrill for me.

John McEnroe has hair like badly turned broccoli.

People should be stopped from writing poetry. There's far too much of it. And if they're any good, they'll go ahead anyways.

I've got life for a subject because as life starts to drain away, you start seeing very clearly what life is, for the first time.