It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.

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.

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

All power corrupts but some must govern.

I'm really a library man, or second-hand book man.

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.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.