The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.

It's part of a writer's profession, as it's part of a spy's profession, to prey on the community to which he's attached, to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters, whether it's his readership or his spy masters. And I think that both professions are perhaps rather lonely.

Survival...is an infinite capacity for suspicion.

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

What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?

The pharmaceutical corporations are engaged in the systematic corruption of the medical profession, country by country

We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.