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My siblings and I had this theory that my parents were spies.

There will always be spies. We have to have them. Without them we wouldn't have got Osama bin Laden - it took us years, but it happened.

We knew we were talking about spies. I knew he knew I knew. I was digging my own grave.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

I could have been a top notch spy. People confess the most amazing secrets to me, even when I am not fishing for those nuggets. I must look trustworthy because I sit there with a video camera or a tape recorder while the stories pour out.

It's a thrilling world, and people really like stories about secrets, which is the essence of a spy drama.

I feel really lucky that I grew up pretending to be a spy for my whole childhood.

I wasn't a spy. I'd have been spotted in five seconds. Yes, I was in intelligence, but that covered a multitude of things.

I've known several spies who have wanted to become novelists. And novelists who became spies, of course.