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

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" I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters. "

" 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. "

" We live in an age of great jitteriness in the financial markets. And there's no doubt at all, I think, that the volume of computer-traded stocks has helped contribute to that. "

" History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events. "

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

" One cannot see any world leader who has got a grip on the financial markets these days. They're too big, too fast. I think that's quite scary. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" To tell a good story and to illuminate the world: the two things are completely linked. That is the point. That is what I've always wanted to do. "

" 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. "

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

" We say, 'The market plummets,' like it's some roaring creature. "

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

" 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. "

" I like to take people you wouldn't really think people would write novels about: an aqueduct engineer, a code-breaker, a hedge-fund manager. It's in those sorts of lives that I find more fascination than in a CIA operative or a Marine or something like that. "

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

" My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected. "

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

" For me, as I suspect for most people, there comes a point where you have enough. If you've got £20 million, why keep going until you've got £100 million or £1,000 million? Does anyone need another vast yacht or private jet or a house full of gold? "

" Everyone thinks politics will just go on the way it is. I don't agree. "

" Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "