History is too often the refuge of the tidy-minded, making neat patterns when the dust has settled.

There's nothing the British like better than a bloke who comes from nowhere, makes it, and then gets clobbered.

To hear the Treorchy Male Choir in full throat is one of the great joys of choral music.

Writing novels is a way of living alternative lives.

Occasionally now I feel a wang that goes in my head - once you've got it you've got it. The [illness] was quite severe, leaving me deeply unhappy and frightened.

When anybody tells you something about writing, somebody will tell you something completely different and they will also be right

More people now work in the arts than the steel, coal and car industries combined.

Is it rather stupid and dangerous to take Magna Carta so much for granted, as many of us seem to do, and to think of this attitude as 'very English?'

I'm not a fan of the working class being mocked, including by some of our famous writers - even those who came from it.

The arts stimulate imagination. They provoke thought. And then, having done that, all sorts of other things happen.

Dame Barbara Cartland was an endearing eccentric, and when I interviewed her, she wanted me to listen to her dictating to her secretary one of those romantic novels that she turned out fortnightly.

If you pay the price for success, you win. If you avoid payment, you lose. It’s really that simple.

You do not need to be perfect to be the best

Can a man change the stars?" "Yes William. If he believes enough, a man can do anything!

Silently we went round and round, And through each hollow mindThe memory of dreadful thingsRushed like a dreadful wind, And horror stalked before each man, And terror crept behind.

I'm hoping my children will save me from my vanity. If it doesn't, plastic surgery is an option... It sucks to have to grow older. We all have to accept it.

Digression is the soul of wit.

There is only one way to gain access to the truth and that is to not expect anything.

I'm just enjoying life more and thinking about the future.

When you hang with a bunch of 300-pound linemen, you tend to find the places that are the greasiest and serve the most food.

It is at moments of need that one learns who one's friends are. Defeated armies learn their lesson.