[on Margaret Thatcher] She walked alone and friendless to school and back. She did not play with other girls in the playground at break. Instead she volunteered to clean the school lavatories. She took these early experiences with her to Downing Street and had her revenge. She made greed respectable.
I do think that books, good books, free you. They make you feel a citizen of the world, and things like class, sex and age don't matter. They're the greatest leveler.
Adrian is simply a type of person who exists everywhere, regardless of nationality. Shy, thoughtful, oversensitive, repressed. In a hut in the Gambia at this moment, there's an Adrian Mole getting on people's tits.