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" The true currency of life is time, not money, and we've all got a limited stock of that. "
Robert Harris
Life
True
Currency
Related Quotes:
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" Unlike the Holocaust, Stalin's murders are forgotten: dust blowing in the wind. "
Robert Harris
Holocaust
Dust
Wind
" Everyone thinks politics will just go on the way it is. I don't agree. "
Robert Harris
Everyone
Agree
Go
" 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
" Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head. "
Robert Harris
Up
Pop
Stick
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected. "
Robert Harris
Literary
Utterly
Unexpected
" 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
" I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power. "
Robert Harris
Power
Political
Politics
" 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 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
" 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 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
" 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
" 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. "
Robert Harris
Too Much
Day
Try
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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 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