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

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" 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. "

" Writing a novel - unlike operating a piece of heavy machinery, say, or cooking a chicken - is not a skill that can be taught. There is no standard way of doing it, just as there is no means of telling, while you're doing it, whether you're doing it well or badly. And merely because you've done it well once doesn't mean you can do it well again. "

" Leaders today are isolated by phalanxes of body guards. It's profoundly undemocratic, the way they have used terrorism as a means to protect themselves. "

" 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. "

" You know, you can be really quite subversive in popular fiction, which is capable of taking on big issues of politics, war, the rise and fall of commercial dynasties. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" Storytelling has a narcotic power. "

" Orwell has always been a huge influence on me. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

" One gains a double benefit in writing about the past, conjuring up how things might have been, and at the same time acquiring a different perspective on the present. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "