The good pupils are often brilliant, and they keep you on your toes and take you to the limits of your knowledge. The worst pupils provide a unique insight into the criminal mind.

I've always had difficulties with female characters.

In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.

When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

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.

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous.

There will be no war, but in the pursuit of principle no stone will be left standing.