The heart was a tyrant, like a child demanding ice cream instead of broccoli and throwing a fit to get its way.

Emerson has what I believe is called a selective memory. He can recall minute details of particular excavations but is likely to forget where he left his hat.

I did write a couple of original screenplays, but I'd rather write plays.

I hope God speaks English. If I get up to heaven and have to point at a menu, I'm gonna be pissed.

The heart of mine is only one, it cannot be known by anybody but myself.

The best defence of peace is not power, but the removal of the causes of war, and international agreements which will put peace on a stronger foundation, than the terror of destruction.

Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff.

In a perfect world, I would be 6-foot-3 and have a perfect head of hair and look like Orlando Bloom.

The rule that covers everything is: how you are with others, expect that back.

It is harder to release a nation from servitude than to enslave a free nation.

My novels tend to come about from a fusion of two big ideas, creating a critical mass that then fissions, throwing off hundreds of other particles, riffs, tropes and characters.