It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you can.

History keeps her secrets longer than most of us. But she has one secret that I will reveal to you tonight in the greatest confidence. Sometimes there are no winners at all. And sometimes nobody needs to lose.

Without a pen in my hand I can't think.

Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.

I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself.

There will be no war, but in the pursuit of principle no stone will be left standing.

Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.