I never felt totally 100% patriotically English... I'd seen a lot of the world by an early age - sort of spent a lot of time traveling around Lebanon and I'd seen Babylon and Damascus and all sorts of places in the Middle East by the time I was ten. Then we'd return to Ruslip in West London... Done a fair bit of traveling really.

One already feels like an anachronism writing novels in the age of what-ever-this-is-the-age-of but touring to promote them feels doubly anachronistic. The marketplace is showing an increasing intolerance for the time-honored practice of printing information on paper and shipping it around the country.

Middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist begin to change places.

Young women from a very young age are taught that life will be easier if you can just turn on the charming smile and say very little and be complacent and docile and sweet.

For me from a pretty young age up until about 21 years old hallucinogenics had a huge place in my life.

It's not always possible to sit down and eat at home in this day and age of fast-paced living but if you are going to eat out do so as a family and support all the great local places in your areas. I'll still eat at the same diner I did as a kid with my parents.

People pay to see movies with women looking beautiful but I think there will be a place for me to play women looking my own age.

The idea of regretting not doing this seemed insane to me. Sitting in the corner at a bar at age 60 saying: 'I could've been Bond. Buy me a drink.' That's the saddest place I could be. At least now at 60 I can say: 'I was Bond. Now buy me a drink.'

Situational unawareness in the private marketplace or on the battlefield will cost you your livelihood or your life. In the Age of Obama however such willful ignorance is a job prerequisite. The less you know the better.

With age you get to a place where you don't want to knock people out. You just want to give people a hug.