A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.

Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of western democracies to the rest of the world.

I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people.

I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth - certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either.

It's so easy for propaganda to work, and dissent to be mocked.

The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression.

A short piece of work means as much to me as a long piece of work.