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

What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?

All power corrupts but some must govern.

We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.

I taught principally German language and literature at Eton. But any master with private pupils must be prepared to teach anything they ask for. That can be as diverse as the early paintings of Salvador Dali or how bumblebees manage to fly.

America has entered one of its periods of historic madness, but this is the worst I can remember.

In the last 15 or 20 years, I've watched the British press simply go to hell. There seems to be no limit, no depths to which the tabloids won't sink. I don't know who these people are but they're little pigs.