I wanted to be a great white hunter, a prospector for gold, or a slave trader. But then, when I was eight, my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers, beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books.

Let it simply be said that we know more about the details of the hours immediately before and the actual death of Jesus, in and near Jerusalem, than we know about the death of any other one man in all the ancient world.

I want to be seen as a good storyteller. I'm a manipulator as well.

I have never had too much trouble for creative ideas to spring up in my mind.

I don't want children. Why should I let some strange little monster into my life to destroy what to me is a perfect set-up?

beware of your most implacable enemy-yourself.

Despite the fact that I spend a lot of time in London, Switzerland and New York, Africa is the place I know and love best, and my heart will always lie here.