What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They're a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.

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

The only reward for love is the experience of loving.

Why did I desert Labour? Total bloody disillusionment. The party was a corpse. It had no ideology, it became detached, old, spineless and needed to go.

Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.

It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.

After all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.