People don't really know themselves until they're 30. Like most people nowadays, I went to university, got a degree and wandered for a bit. I trained to be a chartered accountant, which I didn't much enjoy, and it was only slowly that the idea of becoming a creative writer gelled.

beware of your most implacable enemy-yourself.

You know that feeling when you finish a final exam and you think, 'I never want to do that again'? Well I have the same feeling when I finish a novel. Each time I say, 'I think I may retire now' and then after six months the ideas start to churn again. I could never stop.

It's probably true that everyone has a book in them, although it may not be a very good one.

Every time one of my books sells a million copies in paperback, Pan Macmillan gives me a gold statuette of Pan. I have about 20 of them.

You don't turn out as many books as I did then by sitting around, being cozy with the family.

I grew up in Rhodesia on my father's ranch and every year he used to take us on safari in some remote area of the wilderness.