I don't dictate to anyone what to believe and what not to. And I don't want that to be dictated to me either.

It may be that the books that were best liked in your lifetime are not the ones that are best liked 100 years later.

Children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison.

Sometimes you find your voice by trying to write like people, and sometimes you find it by trying to write unlike people.

One of the things I do take some pride in is that if you had never read an article about my life, if you knew nothing about me, except that my books were being set in front of you to read, and if you were to read those books in sequence, I don't think you would say to yourself, 'Oh my God, something terrible happened to this writer in 1989.'

The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work. They are increasingly seen as not being neutral but rather as combatants by one side or the other.

Have you noticed the physical resemblance between Imran Khan and Gaddafi? If you were making a movie of the life of Gaddafi and you wanted a slightly better-looking version of Gaddafi, you might cast Imran Khan.