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" 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. "

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" It's when you've stopped writing and are doing other things, especially when you're asleep, that the real work is done. "

Robert Harris

Work

Real

Done

" The financial world is at the cutting edge of high technology. "

" Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road. "

" You find out what you think by talking to yourself. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My greatest regret as a writer is that I've never been able to include as many jokes as I'd like. "

" Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price. "

" 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. "

" I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power. "

" I think that whenever a nation feels itself to be at is zenith, it starts to feel a creeping sense of anxiety. "

" Don't try to write too much in a single session. One thousand words a day is quite enough. Stop after about four or five hours. "

" I used to love politics. I can't say I do any more. All the fun has gone out of it. Each side is engaged in this trench warfare of managerialism. They're all too scared to say anything that might make them appear something other than completely bland. "

" I see myself as the literary equivalent of a skilled lathe-operator, or a basket-weaver; a potter, maybe: I make mildly diverting objects that people want to buy. "

" 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. "

" My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected. "

" I am sure future historians will say the biggest and most astonishing change in politics has been the embracing of all the tenets of Thatcherism by the party of Keir Hardie: trade union legislation, Europe, the replacement of Trident, 10 per cent tax for people who have made millions from their companies. "

" Storytelling has a narcotic power. "

" Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it would've been astonishing, say, to see two men holding hands in the streets. And the attitude to having a fling with a girl, or whatever, was quite different then. "

" You can't ever win the war on crime, or the war on terror. You can't repeal human nature. "

" 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. "

" One gains a double benefit in writing about the past, conjuring up how things might have been, and at the same time acquiring a different perspective on the present. "

" It implies a slight failure as a writer that you are reduced to being a ghostwriter for the money. "

" Leaders today are isolated by phalanxes of body guards. It's profoundly undemocratic, the way they have used terrorism as a means to protect themselves. "

" To tell a good story and to illuminate the world: the two things are completely linked. That is the point. That is what I've always wanted to do. "

" There's nothing more interesting than the details of someone's life. "

" If you go back, 'The Great Gatsby' would be a portrait of the rich and fortune made by business. "

Robert Harris

Great

Rich

" 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

You

People

" Writing a novel - unlike operating a piece of heavy machinery, say, or cooking a chicken - is not a skill that can be taught. There is no standard way of doing it, just as there is no means of telling, while you're doing it, whether you're doing it well or badly. And merely because you've done it well once doesn't mean you can do it well again. "