In a world without air all you breathe is adventure!

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

i wish i was away in Ingo far across the briny sea sailing over deepest waters where neither care nore worry trouble me

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

Life is meant to create memories not money.

As long as we dare dream, we can occupy new land.

Evil doesn't always have one face, Ethan.

I've done some stupid things I regret, but I've managed to keep my integrity. Which is important because integrity is fragile. Break it once and it's gone forever.

The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. "Calling cats, " it confided, "tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.

I'm not keen on cars and motorbikes. I tried to be a biker, but it wasn't me - I bought a Harley-Davidson and dumped it.

On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.

Anything you adopt temporarily only begets temporary results, and fluctuating your weight up and down is not lifespan favorable.

Meditation is a journey without movement. In the external world you have to move in order to go ahead, in meditation you don't move, yet you attain.

If you don't know how great this country is, I know someone who does; Russia.