Exclusive will not be published in book format.

I am currently doing about 30 charity auctions a year.

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.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I’m moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

I do greatly admire Australian artists.

I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison.

When will the Home Office realize that when judges retire, not only are they sent home for the rest of their lives, but the only people they have left to judge are their innocent wives.”So...

At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.

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...

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

If you make a deal with a fool, don’t be surprised when they act foolishly.

The discipline required for athletics carried through to writing. You call it obsession. I call it discipline. By the way, I see nothing wrong with that.

I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven’t captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!

I’m not involved in politics any more and they’re quite right.

And so I gave up everything for it – time, energy, research – I dropped everything and so yes False Impression to me was very important indeed.

Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.

I spent my first three weeks there on a wing with 21 murderers. I met some very evil people there but also some men who’d had no upbringing, no chance in life.

I’ve loved art for more than 30 years.

As I say, my real interest is in writing.

I’m passionate again about writing. This is important to me; it’s got to be the comeback book.

I think when you’ve lost an election by 179, there’s going to be a period of time after eighteen years in government when you can’t do anything right, and people just kick you for the...

And I did wonder – because it’s now three years ago since I left prison – whether there would come a time when I would forget it, or it would be in the past as...

He was becoming aware that there was no such thing as over-the-top with Lawrence Davenport, as long as you were talking to Lawrence Davenport about Lawrence Davenport.

It may have modified, it may have changed slightly, but don’t let’s kid ourselves, Margaret Thatcher did things the rest of the world followed.

Actually, Sydney is my second favourite city on earth, I love Sydney, but this is the greatest.

I learnt a lot about myself, I learnt a lot about other people and the problems they have. If I was lucky enough to live to a hundred, how I will feel about two per...

I put £150,000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.

‘My lord, if a man cannot express his honestly held views in the Central Criminal Court, perhaps you can advise me where else he is free to state that which he believes to be the...

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.

I’m not taking any interest in politics. I’m not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.

Are parents always more ambitious for their children than they are for themselves?

Very few people deserted me when I went to prison. They stayed loyal.

Whenever you analyse anyone who has had any success and they’re in the headlines, you will find they are human and make mistakes. I’m certainly that and I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

But I certainly made mistakes, for which I regret, I think most human beings in their lifetime make mistakes, mine ended up in two years prison – two very remarkable years from which I learnt...

While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.

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.

We all make mistakes but one has to move on.

I’ve been doing nineteen hours a day on London, nothing else, I mean this has been my whole life, and writing has been put on one side, and if I’m privileged enough to be the...

One of the advantages of real worth is that menial tasks can always be left to someone else.

When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be prime minister.

Chatterers are a menace.

We go on a lot in this country about offences being caused by drugs. The truth is just as many offences are caused by drink. And that should be taken into account.

What I have found is that real friends stand by you.