I had two experiences of criminality: one was my conman father, the other was teaching at Eton

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature.

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

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.

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

The greatest threat to mankind comes from the renunciation of individual scruple in favor of institutional denominators. . . . Real heroism lies, as it always will, not in conformity or even patriotism, but in acts of solitary moral courage. Which, come to think of it, is what we used to admire in our Christian savior