The whole process of writing is a setting at a distance. That is the value of it - to the writer, and to the people who read the results of this process, which takes the raw, the individual, the uncriticized, the unexamined, into the realm of the general.

Envy has always hidden behind moral indignation.

there are two kinds of humanity, those who dream and those who don't, and both tend to despise, or to tolerate, the other.

I've always disliked words like inspiration. Writing is probably like a scientist thinking about some scientific problem, or an engineer about an engineering problem.

The first casualty in any war is the truth. In World War II, I was part of a group of people who used to meet once a week with the sole purpose of analyzing the news and trying to work out what we weren't being told. We thought that we were clever, but we had absolutely no idea what was really going on. It was only years later that we learned the true story.

What is a hero without love for mankind.

I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot.