Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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

Related Quotes:

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" We say, 'The market plummets,' like it's some roaring creature. "

Robert Harris

Say

Roaring

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Unlike the Holocaust, Stalin's murders are forgotten: dust blowing in the wind. "

" 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. "

" First comes an idea. Then, characters begin to evolve out of the landscape of that idea. And then, finally, characters dominate: plot is simply a function of what these people might do or be. Everything has to flow from their personalities; otherwise it will not be emotionally engaging, or plausible. "

" Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated. "

Robert Harris

Politics

Complicated

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

Robert Harris

Great

Rich

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

" The true currency of life is time, not money, and we've all got a limited stock of that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters. "

" History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

I Am

Personality

" Politics is never a victory, it's just the remorseless grinding forward of events. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "