It struck him as a bit unfair that, at the age of eight, he should have manifested the same sense of solitude that haunted him at forty-three.

As our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.

I've always had difficulties with female characters.

When the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by its madmen but by the sanity of its experts and the superior ignorance of its bureaucrats.

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.

To possess another language, Charlemagne tells us, is to possess another soul. German is such a language. Once you have it in your head, you can go there anytime, you can close the door, you have a refuge.

I mean, I'm in the business of storytelling, not message making.