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" Cut your manuscript ruthlessly but never throw anything away: it's amazing how often a discarded scene or description, which wouldn't fit in one place, will work perfectly later. "
Robert Harris
Never
Away
Amazing
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" It's easy enough to get into power. You can make promises and try to be all things to all people. But the moment you have to make decisions, you're going to annoy at least half of them. Whatever you do, in the end you're almost certain to be brought down by your own character traits. "
Robert Harris
End
Character
Power
" Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated. "
Robert Harris
More
Politics
Complicated
" The financial world is at the cutting edge of high technology. "
Robert Harris
World
High
Edge
" Storytelling has a narcotic power. "
Robert Harris
Narcotic
Storytelling
Power
" You find out what you think by talking to yourself. "
Robert Harris
Yourself
You
Think
" I think that whenever a nation feels itself to be at is zenith, it starts to feel a creeping sense of anxiety. "
Robert Harris
Anxiety
Feel
Nation
" I like to take people you wouldn't really think people would write novels about: an aqueduct engineer, a code-breaker, a hedge-fund manager. It's in those sorts of lives that I find more fascination than in a CIA operative or a Marine or something like that. "
Robert Harris
Find
You
Think
" Humans have changed little over time. We think we've invented the modern world but they were making better speeches 2,000 years ago and grappling with issues of empire and terrorism. "
Robert Harris
Terrorism
World
Time
" History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events. "
Robert Harris
Those
Just
Events
" I think it's very, very hard not to go slightly crazy if you're in the top in politics - especially if you're there for a long time. "
Robert Harris
Time
Think
You
" I think a lot of us feel, when we look at the Dow Jones plunging, alienated - you do feel as if we're in the grip of some alien force that slipped human control. "
Robert Harris
You
Look
Control
" Working 14 hours a day until you're 55 and missing your kids growing up is not what I would consider a recipe for happiness. "
Robert Harris
Growing Up
You
Happiness
" My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected. "
Robert Harris
Literary
Utterly
Unexpected
" You know, you can be really quite subversive in popular fiction, which is capable of taking on big issues of politics, war, the rise and fall of commercial dynasties. "
Robert Harris
You
War
Rise
" I can't get very excited about the House of Commons these days because I don't feel the power is there. What is really bizarre is that you sense it is not in Washington either. It is now very hard even to locate the levers of power, let alone to pull them and change things. "
Robert Harris
Change
Alone
You
" Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price. "
Robert Harris
Doing
Long
Price
" We live in an age of great jitteriness in the financial markets. And there's no doubt at all, I think, that the volume of computer-traded stocks has helped contribute to that. "
Robert Harris
Age
Think
Live
" One cannot see any world leader who has got a grip on the financial markets these days. They're too big, too fast. I think that's quite scary. "
Robert Harris
Fast
Financial
Think
" My parents were interested in history and the world. My father read Graham Greene and Georges Simenon and was a strong trade unionist and Labour supporter. "
Robert Harris
Strong
World
Parents
" For me, as I suspect for most people, there comes a point where you have enough. If you've got £20 million, why keep going until you've got £100 million or £1,000 million? Does anyone need another vast yacht or private jet or a house full of gold? "
Robert Harris
Me
You
People
" Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head. "
Robert Harris
Up
Pop
Stick
" In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair. "
Robert Harris
More
I Am
Personality
" I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power. "
Robert Harris
Power
Political
Politics
" Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road. "
Robert Harris
Most
Road
Show
" My father left school at 14, my mother at 13. My father was clever and well-read. He took a newspaper, always watched the news, discussed it all the time. "
Robert Harris
Mother
Father
Time
" If you go back, 'The Great Gatsby' would be a portrait of the rich and fortune made by business. "
Robert Harris
Great
Rich
Go
" If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe you've moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different. "
Robert Harris
Time
History
Light
" Having the urge to write a novel, especially if you've yet to be published, is like having a medical condition impossible to mention in polite company - it's a relief simply to know there are fellow-sufferers out there. "
Robert Harris
Medical
Know
Company
" My greatest regret as a writer is that I've never been able to include as many jokes as I'd like. "
Robert Harris
Jokes
Regret
Greatest
" Orwell has always been a huge influence on me. "
Robert Harris
Influence
Huge
Been