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

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.

Herbert, my father, was born in Britain but went out to Africa in his teens to join his father and built up an 18,000-acre ranch in what was then Northern Rhodesia, providing work for the locals. He was my hero when I was a boy.

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.

The really disturbing thing about Somalia is that in a country where there are few economic opportunities, pirates are perceived as glamorous and are held in awe by young boys who aspire to their lifestyle.

History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead.

A cynic had defined aid as simply the system by which poor white people in rich countries gave money to rich black people in poor countries to put into Swiss bank accounts.