We'd all survive if Twitter shut down for a short while during major riots. Social media isn't any more important than a train station, a road or a bus service. We don't worry about police temporarily closing those. Common sense. If riot info and fear is spreading by Facebook and Twitter, shut them off for an hour or two, then restore.

I'm not embarrassed about the novels I wrote when I was younger, but I couldn't write them today because of my religion.

I have no ambitions to be a cabinet minister, or prime minister. I wouldn't wish being prime minister on my worst enemy.

Money gives you the power to do whatever you want to do. I like the idea of being in complete control of my life.

I want to retire very early, by the time I am 40, and go to live in Italy.

'Kane and Abel' is the best popular fiction of all time. As a kid, I wanted to be prime minister when I read 'First Among Equals.'

Menshn is a play on the word mention, and in the U.S. that's how it'll be perceived. Like Tumblr or Flickr. People in the U.K. thought that I'd named it after myself.