Hard work should be rewarded by good food.

Why do you have to be the same as the others? …Most of them are stupid.

Culture clash is terrific drama.

Since Lenin died, every Soviet leader had been a liar. They had all glossed over what was wrong and declined to acknowledge reality. The most striking characteristic of Soviet leadership for the last sixty-five year...

When you’re about to be turned down, go for a postponement.

Most rich people have a gangster in their ancestry somewhere.

you should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.

The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.

When you’re thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.

For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words.

There was much talk about why the prime minister had brought back such a troublesome and unpredictable colleague, and the consensus was that he preferred to have Churchill inside the tent spitting out.

When he thought about how he had been slighted, condescended to, manipulated and deceived, he became angry. Obedience was a monastic virtue, but outside the cloisters it had its drawbacks, he thought bitterly. The world...

Philip looked incredulously at the tiny bundle in Johnny’s arms. He reached out a hand tentatively, and lifted a corner of the blanket. He saw a wrinkled pink face, an open toothless mouth and a...

The thriller is the most popular literary genre of the 20th century.

When I’m brave and strong, and care for children and the sick and the poor, I become a better person. And when I’m cruel, cowardly, or tell lies, or get drunk, I turn into someone...

I don’t think there’s any great mystery to writing female characters, so long as you talk to them. If you lived in a monastery and never met any women, maybe it would be difficult.

Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if...

What she needs,’ Tom said aloud ‘is a husband.’ Agnes said crisply, ‘Well, she can’t have mine.

Why is it that those who want to destroy everything good about their country are the quickest to waive the national flag?

He did not really understand the game they were playing: in his world, the best way to get something was to deserve it, not to toady to the giver.

There was a very serious communist strain among American intellectuals before the war. America was a more tolerant place in those days, and Communists were not treated as pariahs. That ended with the McCarthy era.

Two blades clashed, ringing like a bell. Like all small boys, Philip thought his father was invincible; and this was the moment when he learned the truth.

I enjoy learning technical details.

In the dynamics of the main family of the story, a rising socialist in England’s postwar government expects his grandparents to be pleased that the local aristocrat’s garden is commandeered to allow the people to...

Why did people manufacture trouble when there was already so much of it in the world?

the war taught me that nothing counts as much as loyalty” “Bullshit. you still haven’t learned that when humans are under pressure, we’re all willing to lie” “even to the people we care?” “we lie...

It was the study hour. Most of the monks were reading. A few were meditating, an activity that was suspiciously similar to dozing.

Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative.

L’eccesso di orgoglio è un peccato molto diffuso, ma un uomo può frustrare altrettanto facilmente il volere di Dio per eccesso di umiltà.

I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn’t happen, but it might have.

She was unique: there was something abnormal about her, and it was that abnormal something that made her magnetic.

There had been a wonderful atmosphere of liberation and camaraderie. The Russians hated it.

He was like a man who has got used to drinking the finest wine, and now finds that everyday wine thats like vinegar.

Being a monk was the strangest and most perverted way of life imaginable. Monks spent half their lives putting themselves through pain and discomfort that they could easily avoid, and the other half muttering meaningless...

We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary.

All his life he would cherish the memory of an endless caravan of camels alongside the railway line, the laden beasts plodding patiently through the snow, ignoring the twentieth century as it hurtled past them...

I use a professional researcher in New York who does all the legwork, all that stuff which would take me days and weeks of calling, waiting for people to call back.

She was dressed in white, and her tunic had amazing flared sleeves which trailed on the ground behind her as she glided down the stairs. Her hair was a mass of dark curls tumbling around...

They did not suspect her for a moment. It did not occur to them that a woman could be dangerous. How foolish they were. Women could do most of the things men did. Who was...

This was her destiny, and it was a fit and proper one. She was not unwilling, but she knew this was a fateful moment, and she had a sense of doors closing behind her and...

When I’m writing a woman character, I don’t think, ‘What would a woman do?’ I just think, ‘What would this character do in this situation?’

In the grounds of the ch teau was a church said to date from the year 1000, and he went to look at it, but he had never really understood what people saw in old...

In my books, women often solve the problem. Even if the woman is not the hero, she’s a strong character. She does change the plot. She’ll often rescue the male character from some situation.

Archdeacon Peter’s face was like stone. He was the worst kind of Christian, Philip realized: he embraced all of the negatives, enforced every proscription, insisted on all forms of denial, and demanded strict punishment for...

James Bond is quite serious about his drinks and clothing and cigarettes and food and all that sort of thing. There is nothing wry or amused about James Bond.

She shook her head in perplexity. “I’ll never know where you got the idea that you were destined for greatness.” She dropped the rest of the rabbit in the pot and begun to clean the...

World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will...

He was looking forward eagerly to seeing her again. He had coped perfectly well on his own, of course, but it was very reassuring to have someone in your life who was always ready to...

It was the most romantic plane ever made.

He had forgotten that God saw through the silk robes to the sinful heart, that the only wealth worth having was treasure in heaven, and that even the king had to kneel down in church....