A good man knows when to sacrifice himself, a bad man survives but loses his soul.

I worked for MI6 in the Sixties, during the great witch-hunts, when the shared paranoia of the Cold War gripped the services.

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

Cheats, liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a departmental canteen.

All power corrupts but some must govern.

You can't make war against terror. Terror is a technique of battle. It's a tactic that has been employed since time immemorial. You can conduct clandestine action against terrorists, and that must be done.

Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm.