Blackmail is more effective than bribery.

I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton

I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention.

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

I once heard someone say morality was method. Do you hold with that? I suppose you wouldn't. You would say that morality was vested in the aim, I expect. Difficult to know what one's aims are, that's the trouble, specially if you're British.

I was the British spy who had come out of the woodwork and told it how it really was, and anything I said to the contrary only enforced the myth. And since I was writing for a public hooked on Bond and desperate for the antidote, the myth stuck.

We lie to one another every day, in the sweetest way, often unconsciously. We dress ourselves and compose ourselves in order to present ourselves to one another.