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

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

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 anything else might be - no, it's there every day of my life.

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.

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

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

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.

We all make mistakes but one has to move on.

I do greatly admire Australian artists.

Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.

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.

Exclusive will not be published in book format.

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.

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

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

I am currently doing about 30 charity auctions a year.

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

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 cent of my life being that way, I don't know.

I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.

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 Mayor of this city, then I will not write again.

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 a lot.

I've loved art for more than 30 years.

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

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 sake of it, will never admit they voted Conservative.

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

But the thing I felt most strongly about, and put at the end of one of the prison diaries, was education.

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.

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

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

The popularity of an individual in life often only manifests itself in death.

The principal rule of art is to please and to move. All the other rules were created to achieve this first one.

All enterprises that are entered into with indiscreet zeal may be pursued with great vigor at first, but are sure to collapse in the end.

Let me first state that I believe that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.

Entropy theory is indeed a first attempt to deal with global form; but it has not been dealing with structure. All it says is that a large sum of elements may have properties not found in a smaller sample of them.

There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.

The avantgarde are people who don't exactly know where they want to go, but are the first to get there.

I never taste the wine first in restaurants, I just ask the waiter to pour.

After the first miscarriage, I tried to take the attitude that it was my body's way of telling me that this pregnancy wasn't meant to be.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

My first figure was a SLAYER eagle. And the dragons and the tribals are all I have got.

We're parents first, and once you have kids, everybody knows that you have priority lists. Number one is your family and everything else just kind of finds its place.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

The first thing you do when you get out to center field is put up your finger and check the wind chill factor.