Robert Harris

Politics is never a victory, it's just the remorseless grinding forward of events.

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.

Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated.

I'm always embarrassed by those rugby player autobiographies which get written by journalists.

I like villains because there's something so attractive about a committed person - they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted. They're motivated.

It took me realizing that a broken heart has never actually killed anyone to find the courage to ask for what I want, in just about every situation. That was part of my own growing up.