Then there was the whole concept of coal mining, which is a culture unto itself, the most dangerous occupation in the world, and which draws and develops a certain kind of man.

As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.

The most beautiful women in the world were African.

Of course the biggest mafia in Russia has always been the government; in Soviet times, the Communist Party, and now a circle of former KGB and FSB.

I have another Russian idea, too, with a place and a period, so I guess I have enough to keep me busy for quite some time, especially considering that I'm such a slow writer.

Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.

The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself.

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant.

Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.

I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is.

Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire.

But the human mind, when it reaches the bottom of the abyss, must bounce back or disintegrate entirely.

No relationship is perfect and no human being is perfect.

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

To think of failure is to fail.

You try to do something every single day that will help an American or maybe someone overseas.

She's a walkin', talkin' reason to live.

There was no question of generation change or saying goodbye to the past or modernizing sloganising.

If you can find him, then he can find you. If he wants to find you, he will.

I love wearing trackies to lounge around the house in and the strange thing is, it doesn’t matter how many new ones I get I still tend to feel most comfortable in my old ones.

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?