I am not trying to be young again. But I do feel the need to capture that energy in story form before it slips from my mind, to recount those adventures if not relive them.

I was very disciplined when home - lights out for the girls at 9:00, two hours of writing for me. It was murder on my marriage.

For all the worship that Ronald Reagan elicits in conservative circles in the United States, I would venture that Thatcher did far more to reshape British society than Reagan did here.

There is, in my mind, no higher compliment to pay a non-fiction book than to say it reads like a novel.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but usually fiction is just better.

The professions of novelist and journalist are very separate. As a novelist, you are ultimately working for yourself. Yes, you need the approval of a publisher and an audience, but what is valued in fiction writing - style, individual voice, insight - is scorned by the editor who is combing through your newspaper article.

I have prided myself with striving for objectivity, something many literary-minded critics dismiss as impossible. But in Washington, reporters are practically the only people who actually spend time talking to Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, and I find the longer I report in Washington, the mushier and less conclusive my own views are. I like it that way.