Quotes

[on staying in Spain] I don't want to learn the language. I don't want to know what the price of meat is.

[on his time in South Africa] It was easy to write about because it was a mad society. I was living out there and I knew. It was just mind-blowing to any fair-minded person.

Wodehouse did 400 pages of notes on ideas. I just launch myself in - boing. And if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't. I've got no idea how my books are going to end.

[in 2010] I love England, but I don't like the English. There is no such thing as the English gentleman any more. Money rules everything. It is so depressing, I can't bear it. I can't bear the hooliganism.

[about his first wife] She was a terrible snob. This girl had inherited seven houses - which was as good a reason for getting rid of her as any.

[about his prison sentence] In prison they told me, "Make friends with the murderers, everybody else is afraid of them so if you're with them the others leave you alone." That's what I did. Good tip.