There are many victories worse than a defeat.

The first syndicating I tried was when two partners and I created a production company in 1952. We wanted to syndicate famous Bible stories and sell them for $25 a show.

I heard so many stories from Gaomi's peasants that I had an irrepressible urge to write them down. Today Gaomi's peasants know that they have become famous around the world through my writings but I think they are a little puzzled by this.

Famous crime stories almost always lead to the passing of new laws.

Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don't need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision - a way to be more successful - they have to remain nimble enough to take it.

As a shy kid growing up in Sheffield I fantasized about how it would be great to be famous so I wouldn't actually have to talk to people and feel awkward. And of course as we all know from fairy stories when you achieve that ambition you find out you don't want it.

There is a common theme though in the stories I have told which are usually associations of characters or families that are formed outside of a family circle.

What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.

AP promoted me to the White House beat because I knew Clinton his family friends and staff better than anybody in the national press corps. Those contacts helped me break a few stories and get my career in Washington jump-started.

There are just so many stories that are buried on family trees.

The conversion of agnostic High Tories to the Anglican church is always rather suspect. It seems too pat and predictable too clearly a matter of politics rather than faith.

Why do we capital-N Nerds love Mars so much? Because it's beautiful it's tough it's buried in our mythic childhood memories. It's covered with human triumphs but also with sad stories of failure.

There are only really a few stories to tell in the end and betrayal and the failure of love is one of those good stories to tell.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

I have been blessed in many ways and one of those is to have been born in Africa for me a great treasure house of stories. I have been researching it since my infancy reading about it talking to men and women who have spent their lives in this land living it as I have and loving it as I do. I write almost entirely from my own experience.

You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war literature was careful not to do the same which is why writers began to reflect on the stories they told and to make readers part of their texts. I do the same.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.