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

Their souls were contagious. ... Bloodsuckers, spiders and vampires: that was what Lenin called them.

You can always spot a fool, for he is a man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election.

History is too important to be left to the historians.

History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.

My greatest regret as a writer is that I've never been able to include as many jokes as I'd like.

Egyptologists, skilled in piecing together the papyri of lost civilisations, suddenly discovered that the same talent could be applied to working out the pattern of German radio traffic.