- Happiness
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- Nov 07, 2020
Robert Harris Quotes
Most Famous Robert Harris Quotes of All Time!
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- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Nov 07, 2020
Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head.
- Nov 07, 2020
You can't ever win the war on crime, or the war on terror. You can't repeal human nature.
- Father
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Landscape
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
My greatest regret as a writer is that I've never been able to include as many jokes as I'd like.
- Past
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price.
- Creeping
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that whenever a nation feels itself to be at is zenith, it starts to feel a creeping sense of anxiety.
- History
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- Nov 07, 2020
History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.
- Light
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- I Can
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- Nov 07, 2020
I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters.
- Change
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Look
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Politics
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power.
- Been
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- Nov 07, 2020
Orwell has always been a huge influence on me.
- Graham
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Change
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road.
- Power
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- Nov 07, 2020
Storytelling has a narcotic power.
- Cooking
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Enough
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Discarded
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Future
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Great
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Great
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- Nov 07, 2020
If you go back, 'The Great Gatsby' would be a portrait of the rich and fortune made by business.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated.
- Talking
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- Nov 07, 2020
You find out what you think by talking to yourself.
- Fluke
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- Nov 07, 2020
My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected.
- Forgotten
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- Nov 07, 2020
Unlike the Holocaust, Stalin's murders are forgotten: dust blowing in the wind.
- Failure
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- Nov 07, 2020
It implies a slight failure as a writer that you are reduced to being a ghostwriter for the money.
- Politics
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Myself
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Grinding
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- Nov 07, 2020