Originally I wanted to be a diplomat, and by attrition I started giving up that idea.

One does have to learn to travel with a degree of humility and that reflected in writing and personality.

I was talking to my publisher in Britain and was told here we are - we are sixty million people and we reckon only four hundred thousand people in Britain really read.

In both places [Paraguay and Newfoundland] people rise despite everything - both are pretty tough environments.

People my age and younger do think much more towards Europe. We have to fill the gap sometime - we can't think we are an empire any longer after all.

I have real fears for Cuba based on the South American experience. Where you have had such a stern regime, as Fidel's [Castro], there is no culture of politics.

There are 60 million of us [britains] crammed into an area the size of a state. So you don't have that feeling of remoteness at all, ever. And that's reflected in the way our media works, and so on.