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.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

In the final analysis, it is your decision to make, but it doesn't move as fast as I'd like it to move.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.