In Shanghai, I saw great contrasts. On one street there would be impressive shops selling copies of the latest word in glamorous European fashion, and around the corner on a back street there were poor families crammed into one room with a naked light bulb. One evening I heard a Chinese family singing "Happy Birthday." It was weird. You would have thought that they'd have their own happy birthday song. Every dominant society in the world - whether it's French or British or American - imposes its culture on less developed societies.

An interim report - that is what an autobiography is.

I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed.

When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia.

A writer falls in love with an idea and gets carried away.

Dreams have always been my friend, full of information, full of warnings.

But children can't be a center of life and a reason for being. They can be a thousand things that are delightful, interesting, satisfying, but they can't be a well-spring to live from. Or they shouldn't be.