A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.

Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.

I began writing when I was still in the British Foreign Service, and it was then understood that even if you wrote about butterfly collecting, you used another name.

When you are brought up as a frozen child, you go on freezing. It wasn't until I had my four sons, who have brought me immense joy, that I began to thaw. That I realised how utterly extraordinary my childhood was.

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

Once you've lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It's a mentality, a double standard of existence.