It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D.

I was quite able at the insignificant work I did in MI6, but absolutely dysfunctional in my domestic life. I had no experience of fatherhood. I had no example of marital bliss or the family unit.

Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm.

When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for me is about twenty-two pages. When it's going badly, it isn't really going badly; it's just the beginning.

Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.

If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.

Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.