Robert Harris Quotes
-
Storytelling has a narcotic power.
→ -
You can always spot a fool, for he is a man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election.
→ -
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 make sense of the present unless a part of you lives in the past.
→ -
What a heap of ash most political careers amount to, when one really stops to consider them!
→ -
If you spend too long trying to avoid death, you will be dead in at least one way.
→ -
Orwell has always been a huge influence on me.
→ -
Politics? Boring? Politics is history on the wing! What other sphere of human activity calls forth all that is most noble in men's souls, and all that is most base? Or has such excitement? Or more vividly exposes our strengths and weaknesses? Boring? You might as well say that life itself is boring!
→ -
You can't ever win the war on crime, or the war on terror. You can't repeal human nature.
→ -
If long hitting is the thing that causes the spectators to whistle through their teeth in wonderment, why not play tournaments up and down an expansive stadium?
→ -
You find out what you think by talking to yourself.
→ -
It's when you've stopped writing and are doing other things, especially when you're asleep, that the real work is done.
→ -
In a generation or two, or maybe sooner, young golfers of true sporting instinct will wonder why all this handling of the ball is necessary. It will seem to them that the game is not as good as it might be.
→ -
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.
→ -
The natural impulse of men is to follow and whoever has the strongest sense of purpose will always dominate.
→ -
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.
→ -
A book unwritten is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and it immediately becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it’s halfway to being just like every other bloody book that’s ever been written.
→ -
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.
→ -
My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected.
→ -
It is perfectly legitimate to write novels which are essentially prose poems, but in the end, I think, a novel is like a car, and if you buy a car and grow flowers in it, you're forgetting that the car is designed to take you somewhere else.
→ -
A police state is a country run by criminals
→ -
Tape is the archiving champ and has been for decades. Reliable, less expensive than disks and available in large-scale robotic systems that store petabytes.
→ -
Suicide leaves everyone feeling guilty.
→ -
But clever people all make one mistake. They all think everyone else is stupid. And everyone isn't stupid. They just take a bit more time, that's all.
→ -
Cicero smiled at us. 'The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destory one's spirit by worrying about them too far in advance. Especially tonight.
→ -
People perish. Books are immortal.
→ -
Cicero most reminds me of Harold Wilson. Both men knew how to keep the show on the road.
→ -
Everyone thinks politics will just go on the way it is. I don't agree.
→ -
It is perseverance, and not genius that takes a man to the top. Rome is full of unrecognized geniuses. Only perseverance enables you to move forward in the world.
→ -
What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason
→
Related Authors
-
Nick Hornby Novelist -
Alexandre Desplat Film composer -
Conn Iggulden Author -
Miranda Richardson Film actress -
William Boyd Novelist -
Jane Yolen Writer -
Roman Polanski Film director -
Pierce Brosnan Actor -
C.J. Sansom Writer -
Tom Stoppard Playwright -
Eve Bunting Writer -
Michael Apted Director -
Marcus Tullius Cicero Philosopher -
Jeremy Paxman Journalist -
Thomas Harris Author -
Olivia Williams Film actress -
Ewan McGregor Actor -
Kim Cattrall Actress -
Sharon Tate Actress -
Steven Saylor Author