There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.

The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.

People who've had very unhappy childhoods are pretty good at inventing themselves. If nobody invents you for yourself, nothing is left but to invent yourself for others.

God is in his Heaven and the first night was a wow.

I made a series of wrong decisions about moderately recent books, and I've sold the rights to studios for ridiculous amounts of money and the films have never been made. That's the saddest thing of all, because they're locked up and no-one else can make them.

But I think the real tension lies in the relationship between what you might call the pursuer and his quarry, whether it's the writer or the spy.