But I think the real tension lies in the relationship between what you might call the pursuer and his quarry, whether it's the writer or the spy.

It's part of a writer's profession, as it's part of a spy's profession, to prey on the community to which he's attached, to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters, whether it's his readership or his spy masters. And I think that both professions are perhaps rather lonely.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

The spy who came in from the cold.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.