I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing.

When I'm writing a woman character, I don't think, 'What would a woman do?' I just think, 'What would this character do in this situation?

Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative.

James Bond is quite serious about his drinks and clothing and cigarettes and food and all that sort of thing. There is nothing wry or amused about James Bond.

Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended.

President Wilson says a leader must treat public opinion the way a sailor deals with the wind, using it to blow the ship in one direction or another, but never trying to go directly against it.

It was an odd thing to do, to stand in a street in the hope of seeing someone who hardly knew him, but he did not want to move.