There are so many characters whizzing around inside my head, it's like Looney Tunes. But as soon as I've finished writing about them, I completely forget who they are.

I never read in bed, only in my study.

The English have always been greedy for news of times past, with that mixture of fatalism and melancholy which is part of the national character.

Yet, like the sea and the gallows, London refuses nobody.

I don't believe necessarily the past is in the past. It's eternal, it's all around us.

As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

I love soap operas - the stories, the plots! And I love the game shows and the courtroom dramas and the detectives - Jessica Fletcher, 'Columbo,' 'Perry Mason,' 'L.A. Law.' Any sense of guilt appeals to me in a television program - a sense of guilt, or a sense of making a lot of money.