The endless chatter of this journey had wearied me.

In so far as I have any beliefs, I suppose I'm like that old Peggy Lee song, 'Is That All There Is?' I want to believe there's something else going on, but what that something else is I don't pretend to know.

There are certain people who seem doomed to buy certain houses. The house expects them. It waits for them.

London has always provided the landscape for my imagination. It becomes a character - a living being - within each of my books.

Every book for me is a chapter in the long book which will finally be closed on the day of my death.

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.

A triptych in which the presiding deities are Mother, England and Me.