Diplomacy was what I wanted to do. From really quite an early age and I think I had a false impression that diplomacy equals travel.

That's more about lifestyle [Peter Mayles], living abroad. It's about buying a donkey and house in south France, and that's a slightly different thing. A very popular genre but that's not quite my thing.

This terrible frustration that we so often feel in the West in not being able to articulate and express ourselves.

If you see our best seller list, most of them are books that are given as gifts. They are books you give to flatter somebody.

I would love to write a book that opens people's eyes to the more interesting side.

We don't really listen to what the other person is saying. We have gotten used to information being in such a concentrated form all the time, and so continuously, that conversation somehow seems inadequate for a lot of people, and therefore they can't join in it. You notice how many people can't argue anymore - without getting very upset.

Paraguay has had a U.S. supermarket boss as its ambassador for a while. He did the job well. He was there because he wanted to be there. Rather than the British diplomat who didn't want to be there.