Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.
There are defining moments in one’s life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.
No time like the present.
I find I don’t learn a lot while I’m talking.
A strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength.
The worst moment of any campaign is waiting for the sun to rise on the morning of the battle.
I want to be your stranger across a crowded room.
Well I think after leaving prison, and having written three diaries about life in prison, it became a sort of a new challenge to write another novel, to write a new novel.
Birth is life’s first lottery ticket.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
Who Saddam Hussein kills, dies.
I’ve loved art for more than 30 years.
I’m vulgar, I’m a populist. But isn’t that what the mayor should be?
I’m not taking any interest in politics. I’m not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.
When a book comes out I wonder if one person will buy it. It’s agony. Of course it’s stupid, but it’s agony.
A work of art is worth what someone will pay for it.
When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.
I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison.
But the thing I felt most strongly about, and put at the end of one of the prison diaries, was education.
I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.