Multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations view the exploitation of the world's sick and dying as a sacred duty to their shareholders.

I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.

The one thing you can bet is that spying is never over. Spying is like the wiring in this building: It's just a question of who takes it over and switches on the lights. It will go on and on and on.

Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.

A good writer can watch a cat pad across the street and know what it is to be pounced upon by a Bengal tiger.

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre.

The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London.