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" Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road. "

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" Storytelling has a narcotic power. "

" Cut your manuscript ruthlessly but never throw anything away: it's amazing how often a discarded scene or description, which wouldn't fit in one place, will work perfectly later. "

" I am sure future historians will say the biggest and most astonishing change in politics has been the embracing of all the tenets of Thatcherism by the party of Keir Hardie: trade union legislation, Europe, the replacement of Trident, 10 per cent tax for people who have made millions from their companies. "

" I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power. "

" In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair. "

" I think that whenever a nation feels itself to be at is zenith, it starts to feel a creeping sense of anxiety. "

" The financial markets tend to be just a backdrop for a novel, for a heist or something that isn't necessarily integral to it. On the whole, I don't think the financial world has been well served by novels. "

" If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe you've moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different. "

" I can't get very excited about the House of Commons these days because I don't feel the power is there. What is really bizarre is that you sense it is not in Washington either. It is now very hard even to locate the levers of power, let alone to pull them and change things. "

" It's easy enough to get into power. You can make promises and try to be all things to all people. But the moment you have to make decisions, you're going to annoy at least half of them. Whatever you do, in the end you're almost certain to be brought down by your own character traits. "

" Humans have changed little over time. We think we've invented the modern world but they were making better speeches 2,000 years ago and grappling with issues of empire and terrorism. "

" Having the urge to write a novel, especially if you've yet to be published, is like having a medical condition impossible to mention in polite company - it's a relief simply to know there are fellow-sufferers out there. "

" The financial world is at the cutting edge of high technology. "

" You can't ever win the war on crime, or the war on terror. You can't repeal human nature. "

" Unlike the Holocaust, Stalin's murders are forgotten: dust blowing in the wind. "

" There's nothing more interesting than the details of someone's life. "

" My greatest regret as a writer is that I've never been able to include as many jokes as I'd like. "

" The true currency of life is time, not money, and we've all got a limited stock of that. "

" My father left school at 14, my mother at 13. My father was clever and well-read. He took a newspaper, always watched the news, discussed it all the time. "

" My parents were interested in history and the world. My father read Graham Greene and Georges Simenon and was a strong trade unionist and Labour supporter. "

" If you go back, 'The Great Gatsby' would be a portrait of the rich and fortune made by business. "

" I see myself as the literary equivalent of a skilled lathe-operator, or a basket-weaver; a potter, maybe: I make mildly diverting objects that people want to buy. "

" Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price. "

" I think it's very, very hard not to go slightly crazy if you're in the top in politics - especially if you're there for a long time. "

" It implies a slight failure as a writer that you are reduced to being a ghostwriter for the money. "

" Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated. "

" I used to love politics. I can't say I do any more. All the fun has gone out of it. Each side is engaged in this trench warfare of managerialism. They're all too scared to say anything that might make them appear something other than completely bland. "

" I think a lot of us feel, when we look at the Dow Jones plunging, alienated - you do feel as if we're in the grip of some alien force that slipped human control. "

" You find out what you think by talking to yourself. "

" It's when you've stopped writing and are doing other things, especially when you're asleep, that the real work is done. "