Quotes

I store away my experiences and don't feel really happy until I've found a way to write about them.

My disagreement with the depiction of Harry Palmer on the screen was the implausible suggestion that Harry was blackmailed into working for the secret intelligence service. Blackmailed! This is the old boy network. These are people with tailored shirts and lace-up shoes. Despite the disrepute it suffered from harbouring traitors such as [Kim Philby]--Westminster, Cambridge and the Athenaeum--the SIS retained this policy. Blackmailing a Harry Palmer into the service would have been unthinkable.

The Legend of Vainamoinen tells of a man who invented a grinder producing infinite salt who was rewarded with a beautiful wife, but she killed herself at the prospect of being married to someone old.