Don't try to write too much in a single session. One thousand words a day is quite enough. Stop after about four or five hours.

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?

Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road.

I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power.

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

Another of Cicero's maxims was that if you must do something unpopular, you might as well do it wholeheartedly, for in politics there is no credit to be won by timidity.

In a generation or two, or maybe sooner, young golfers of true sporting instinct will wonder why all this handling of the ball is necessary. It will seem to them that the game is not as good as it might be.