Talking to Lee Child and discovering, from his chapter in The Chopin Manuscript, that he's even more of an audio geek than I am (as his chapter in Chopin proves).

In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat.

What must be done must be done, whatever the price, the cost, the pain. One day we all must walk through fire.

A nation's not a child, for God's sake. ... It's like a wild horse you tame by breaking it. Or a fiery woman you slap till she sees sense and warms your bed.

It's a long ride home with nothing but me for company. I bore myself sometimes. Not often. Just now and again.

The only sheets I'll ever long for are my own.

You speak as if this is a good world with a little evil in it. Rubbish. It's a hellish one where the best a man can do is put a little sanity back and look after his own.

Do I dream you? Or you dream me? Or does someone, something bigger than all' - her hands swept the vast constellations above them - 'this beauteous calamity, dream everything we see and more?

To watch. To wait. To wonder at a world in chaos, ' the girl said. 'And hope one day you fools might learn.

If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

Pull a thread in my story and feel the tremor half a world and two millenia away.

Having a goal is a state of happiness.

Faith is about trusting God when you have unanswered questions.

I think that band [Glenn Miller] was the beginning of the end. It was a mechanized version of what they called jazz music. I still can't stand to listen to it.

Russia right now is searching for its soul. It's trying to figure out what it really is.

Every great accomplishment of mankind has been preceded by an extended period, often over many years, of concentrated effort.

On every movie I’ve done as a director, I look at the producers and having done it, I don’t envy them, at all.

All endeavour calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.

The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves to be worthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of being invincible.