To capture the human cost of fallen empire with all its horror and absurdity, Sheets offers the right combination: the political insight of a top reporter and the power of a novelist.

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.

Live together as united people in a beautiful peaceful world.

We all look back at some time or other and wonder why we didn't listen to our instincts. Why did we hestiate? Why did we lose our dreams?

Age makes you want to hold everyone you love as close as you can.

I put my clothing into the refrigerator and the foods into my wardrobe

At the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion.

Humans create their futures every day of every year; only you can alter your worlds.

Sun and moon, sun and moon, time goes.

It's only the losers named Dave that think having an unusual name is bad, and who cares what they think. They're named Dave.

Gradually as you become curator of your own contentment, you will learn to embrace the gentle yearnings of your heart.

There are people who are dangerous, and evil is real.