I was very conscious of race as I was writing. I was lucky to have spent real time in Portuguese Africa, but I am white and my main characters are white, outsiders at sea in the "Dark Continent."

One of the great sadnesses of my life, as I take stock at middle age, is the sense that the adventure largely ended by the time I was twenty-five.

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

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.

I have always had a hard time revising my work as a journalist, which was never much of a problem. You always have editors as backstops. Their job is to perfect your story. Most of them want to be useful.

I was very conscious of race as I was writing. I was lucky to have spent real time in Portuguese Africa, but I am white and my main characters are white, outsiders at sea in the "Dark Continent."

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.