Quote

I used to read Gore Vidal books and think I was cool.

Gore Vidal has been a friend of mine for years, and he's one of the greatest writers in American history.

The whole book experience was a look into another world, the world of Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer.

I'm not Gore Vidal or William Buckley.

My favourite author is Leon Trotsky - the political philosophy and the way he writes is beautiful, and really relevant, too.

I enjoyed reading all the classic authors like Isaac Asimov and Bradbury.

One more recent novelist to come along is Cormac McCarthy. Him, I like.

Does one ever read a politician's books?

I came to know Gore Vidal in the mid-1980s, when I was living in southern Italy, virtually a neighbour, and our friendship lasted until his death in 2012. Needless to say, he was a complicated and often combative man.