I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters.

But only a fool sails into combat with nature

It's when you've stopped writing and are doing other things, especially when you're asleep, that the real work is done.

By dawn he had surrendered, gratefully, to the old inertia, the product of always seeing both sides of every question.

For me, as I suspect for most people, there comes a point where you have enough. If you've got £20 million, why keep going until you've got £100 million or £1,000 million? Does anyone need another vast yacht or private jet or a house full of gold?

I think it's very, very hard not to go slightly crazy if you're in the top in politics, especially if you're there for a long time.

My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected.