Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

It's part of a writer's profession, as it's part of a spy's profession, to prey on the community to which he's attached, to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters, whether it's his readership or his spy masters. And I think that both professions are perhaps rather lonely.

I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got one immediately available to them, then they usually manage to manufacture it in their private lives.

A committee is an animal with four back legs.

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

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