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" 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
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" 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
" 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
" History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events. "
Robert Harris
Those
Just
Events
" Orwell has always been a huge influence on me. "
Robert Harris
Influence
Huge
Been
" 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. "
Robert Harris
Men
Attitude
Change
" 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 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. "
Robert Harris
Say
Politics
Scared
" 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
" 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 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. "
Robert Harris
I Am
Politics
People
" 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. "
Robert Harris
Body
Way
Today
" You find out what you think by talking to yourself. "
Robert Harris
Yourself
You
Think
" Politics is never a victory, it's just the remorseless grinding forward of events. "
Robert Harris
Victory
Forward
Events
" My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected. "
Robert Harris
Literary
Utterly
Unexpected
" Storytelling has a narcotic power. "
Robert Harris
Narcotic
Storytelling
Power
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Robert Harris
People
Flow
Everything
" 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 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
" 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
" The financial markets tend to be just a backdrop for a novel, for a heist or something that isn't necessarily integral to it. On the whole, I don't think the financial world has been well served by novels. "
Robert Harris
Well
Financial
World
" It implies a slight failure as a writer that you are reduced to being a ghostwriter for the money. "
Robert Harris
Money
Failure
You
" 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
" There's nothing more interesting than the details of someone's life. "
Robert Harris
Life
Details
Interesting
" 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. "
Robert Harris
Cooking
You
You Can Do It
" Unlike the Holocaust, Stalin's murders are forgotten: dust blowing in the wind. "
Robert Harris
Holocaust
Dust
Wind
" 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. "
Robert Harris
See
I See
Want
" 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