Very few people deserted me when I went to prison. They stayed loyal.
— Jeffrey Archer
I put £150,000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.
The discipline required for athletics carried through to writing. You call it obsession. I call it discipline. By the way, I see nothing wrong with that.
I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.
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.
I've loved art for more than 30 years.
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.
Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.
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.
Actually, Sydney is my second favourite city on earth, I love Sydney, but this is the greatest.
I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison.
I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.
What I have found is that real friends stand by you.
Chatterers are a menace.
I'm not taking any interest in politics. I'm not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.
At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.
I do greatly admire Australian artists.
I'm not involved in politics any more and they're quite right.
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.
Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.
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.
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.
I am currently doing about 30 charity auctions a year.
When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.
When a book comes out I wonder if one person will buy it. It's agony. Of course it's stupid, but it's agony.
We all make mistakes but one has to move on.
When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be prime minister.
I'm passionate again about writing. This is important to me; it's got to be the comeback book.
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.
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.
But the thing I felt most strongly about, and put at the end of one of the prison diaries, was education.
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.
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!
Exclusive will not be published in book format.
