I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end.

Without a pen in my hand I can't think.

Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that.

America has entered one of its periods of historic madness, but this is the worst I can remember.

There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.

I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat.