It was a charming fantasy of romantics that the spies would stop spying, that political conflict would end and politicians would tell the truth. Unfortunately that has not been the case.

Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.

I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got one immediately available to them, then they usually manage to manufacture it in their private lives.

When a problem threatens to engulf you, there's nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.

Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.

Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.

Love means having something to betray.