- This isn't an interrogation or a trail. Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. -Truth is singular. It's 'versions' are mistruths.

Two people who are a little bit deluded in each other's favour. That's what love is, isn't it?

I think all writers of my age who are brought up on films probably by the age of 16 have seen many more films than they have read classics of literature. We can't help but be influenced by film. Film has got some great tricks that it's taught writers.

When insolvent, pack minimally, with a valise tough enough to be thrown onto a London pavement from a first- or second-floor window. Insist on hotel rooms no higher.

Only professional diplomats, inveterate idiots and women view diplomacy as a long-term substitute for war.

Power. What do we mean? 'The ability to determine another man's luck.' ...how is it that some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as minions, as livestock? The answer is a holy trinity. First: God-given gifts of charisma. Second: the discipline to nurture these gifts to maturity, for though humanity's topsoil is fertile with talent, only one seed in ten thousand will ever flower -- for want of discipline. Third: the will to power.

Birdsong foamed in the hour-before-dawn garden.