There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

There is a big difference between fighting the cold war and fighting radical Islam. The rules have changed and we haven't.

If you see the world as gloomily as I see it, the only thing to do is laugh or shoot yourself.

Americans believe that if you know something, you should do something about it.

When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again.

The trouble is, when professional spies go out of their way to make a definitive statement about one of their own, the public tends to believe the opposite: which puts us all back where we started.

I think that most of my books are part of some process of self-education, often about the places I go to. Most of all, they are about the peculiar tension between institutional loyalty and loyalty to oneself; the mystery of patriotism, for a Brit of my age and generation, where it runs, how it should be defined, what it's worth and what a corrupting force it can be when misapplied. All that stuff is just in me and it comes out in the characters. I don't mean to preach, but I know I do, and I'm a very flawed person. It's quite ridiculous.