The West sees Iran as an important force in the gulf.

Every time you finish a book, you have a terrible feeling that there's just never going to be another one. But fortunately, so far, the next one has always shown up.

At the height of the British Empire very few English novels were written that dealt with British power. It's extraordinary that at the moment in which England was the global superpower the subject of British power appeared not to interest most writers.

One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity.

The sixty-minute drama form has become very rich.

If you were standing next to the prophet on the mountain, would you have seen the archangel? And my answer to that was probably not, even though it's supposed to be a really big archangel. He describes it as - the Archangel Gabriel as standing on the horizon and filling the sky. That's a big angel.

Writers have been in terrible situations and have yet managed to produce extraordinary work.