When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

By repetition, each lie becomes an irreversible fact upon which other lies are constructed.

In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.

Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.

I worked for MI6 in the Sixties, during the great witch-hunts, when the shared paranoia of the Cold War gripped the services.

Americans believe that if you know something, you should do something about it.

A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.