A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

It was a charming fantasy of romantics that the spies would stop spying, that political conflict would end and politicians would tell the truth. Unfortunately that has not been the case.

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.

There was nothing dishonourable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one's own generation.

On one hand we go like hell for every terror cell we can find, we penetrate it, we destroy it. On the other hand, there is a much bigger need for a political solution.

I think the greatest single enemy is the misuse of information, the perversion of truth in the hands of terribly skillful people.

A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.