Sherrod Brown

When I say they're lunatics, that's what I'm talking about. People that think you should allow guns in day care centers, but they're protecting themselves by not allowing guns in their workplace, that would be in that category of lunatics.

After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of my time, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap. That's a big one, the napping on demand!

For a boy of ten, used to the coal bings and rust-coloured burns of Cowdenbeath, the fields and woodland of Kingswood, with its overgrown but stately avenue of copper-barked sequoias, felt like a local version of paradise.