Real men read my books.

They say I'm worth either €200 million, €100 million, €50 million or €10 million, but that's something between God, the HMRC and myself.

My father was my god. His approval was so valuable to me.

Many people have compared me to the Victorian adventure writer, Rider Haggard. I accept that as a compliment. As a boy growing up in Central Africa I read all Haggard's African novels.

If I have to die, then it’s best to do so before I see everything I love, the land, the animals, the people, all of it destroyed.

A man follows the path laid out for him. He does his duty to God and his King. He does what he must do, not what pleases him. God’s truth, boy, what kind of world would this be if every man did what pleased him alone? Who would plough the fields and reap the harvest, if every man had the right to say, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ In this world there is a place for every man, but every man must know his place.

All my characters have got a big slice of me in them. A big piece of me, because it’s my dialogue and this is the way I think and talk.

As they slithered up the muddy bank, scores of tiny silver fish that had been feasting on the open wounds were slow to relinquish their hold and were drawn out with the carcasses. Stranded upon the mud-banks, they flopped and quivered like stars that had fallen to earth.

Play the game without mercy, play to win.

Robin Hood was also a terrorist – but he had some style and a little class.