What I discovered is I don't like to repeat lead characters because one of the most pleasurable things in a book to me is learning about the lead.

For something that's supposed to be secret, there is a lot of intelligence history. Every time I read one book, two more are published.

In the 1930s, there were so many different conflicts going on between the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Romanians and so on.

I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.

The forces that are driving mankind toward unity and peace are deep-seated and powerful. They are material and natural, as well as moral and intellectual.

Even as a little kid, I was fascinated by newspapers and magazines. They were my TV. I'd be the first one up to grab the morning paper, mainly to look at the sports pictures, the war pictures.

I am for peace, retrenchment and reform, the watchword of the great Liberal Party thirty years ago.

Share your smile with the world. It's a symbol of friendship and peace.