I've done very well financially and sold a lot because I've had a multiple method of attack as a writer. That's a conscious strategy.

Edgar Rice Burroughs taught me pace and gave me a sense of action and adventure.

Some people see writing as a white-collar career, but I've always approached it as a blue-collar writer.

I lived below the poverty line when I was young and starting out as a writer. But my wife and I kept trying to do things better, as anyone with ambition does. But just because you're trying doesn't mean you're always going to succeed.

I can't drive, so I don't need a flash car, and I like living at home, so I don't need a mansion. I'm sensible with money. It's not why I act.

My father had left school at 18, without enough money to go to college - and, with four sons after the war, said he could still not afford to do so.

My impression of Wall Street growing up was certainly that it was like the big, bad place where all of the men did the bad things with our money.

My parents spent an awful lot of money sending me to the best possible schools, and I came out of my exams and thought, 'I don't really want to do a degree.' I did philosophy with the Jesuits for about a year, and then I joined a bank. While I was there, I saw an ad in an Irish paper for radio announcers.