The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.

She's no flibberti-gibberti mamzell, but a whir-stir-get-lost-sir bundla dynamite!

If I were dead, then nobody in England would have to fuss about the cost of my security and whether or not I merited such special treatment for so long.

A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and it's the balance of that that's difficult to achieve.

Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say.

Before I came to England, my favorite authors were P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. I used to devour both.

But there's one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn't one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.