Quotes by Robert Harris

“I wasnt going to let it get in my head that I had missed a couple. I was going to keep shooting and relieve pressure off some of these guys.”

“I think its great for them to come out and give their time and give some support and some acknowledgement to the Marine Corps and the base. I think its awesome.”

“If youre living well below the poverty line, do you have a credit card to pay to stay in a motel or hotel for a few days? They were between a rock and a hard place.”

“In my opinion, they didnt have anything. We felt it shouldnt have gone to trial in the first place.”

“Those two people were swayed more by sympathy and emotion for the family than anything objective. Thats my feeling.”

“Ive been in marching band since my freshman year and the best part of it for me has been the relationships Ive made.”

“The letter said everything was OK.”

“Black poverty has persisted and become intractable but unless we have some crisis like this, we basically forget about these people -- out of sight, out of mind.”

“The more people we have down here, the better we can search areas and get people out.”

“We are pleased to partner with a company with the extensive cardiovascular experience required to rapidly advance our technology through the clinical development and regulatory process, and manage the eventual manufacturing and commercialization.”

....let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end........Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.

And then to my surprise in one of them I discovered the original manuscript of On Friendship. Puzzled, I unrolled it, thinking I must have brought it with me by mistake. But when I saw that Cicero had copied out at the top of the roll in his shaking hand a quotation from the text, on the importance of having friends, I realised it was a parting gift: If a man ascended into heaven and gazed upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvellous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself. And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight. Nature abhors solitude.

A ghost who has only a lay knowledge of the subject will be able to keep asking the same questions as the lay reader, and will therefore open up the potential readership of the book to a much wider audience.

...he possessed for attractive form of courage: bravery of a nervous man. After all, any rash fool can be a hero if he sets no value on his life or hasnt the wit to appreciate the danger. But to understand the risks, perhaps even to flinch at first, but then summon the strength to face them down--that is my opinion is the most commendable for of value...

The trouble with Lucious, he said, putting his feet up on the desk after this cousin has gone, is that he thinks politics is a fight for justice. Politics is a profession.

Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it wouldve been astonishing, say, to see two men holding hands in the streets. And the attitude to having a fling with a girl, or whatever, was quite different then.

It implies a slight failure as a writer that you are reduced to being a ghostwriter for the money.

We live in an age of great jitteriness in the financial markets. And theres no doubt at all, I think, that the volume of computer-traded stocks has helped contribute to that.

If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - its like looking at a range of mountains. And the first time you see them, they look one way. But then time changes, the pattern of light shifts. Maybe youve moved slightly, your perspective has changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different.

Having the urge to write a novel, especially if youve yet to be published, is like having a medical condition impossible to mention in polite company - its a relief simply to know there are fellow-sufferers out there.