Although the notion of one god may give comfort to those in need of a daddy, it reminds the rest of us that the totalitarian society is grounded upon the concept of God the father. One paternal god, one paternal leader. Authority is absolute.

I suppose my liking for Italy is partly atavism, my family are of the old Roman stock. They came from the Alps north of Venice.

I write in the morning at a table, longhand on yellow legal pads, just like Nixon, when I’m doing fiction.

This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment.

No reform ever came from the bottom, and it was always people who understood how the ruling class worked who turned out to be the reformers.

I come from the highest class of all. I am a third-generation celebrity.

I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.