Quotes by Robert Harris

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

People will perish, but books are immortal. (Pompeii)

Robert Harris

To say she was my girlfriend was absurd: no one the wrong side of thirty has a girlfriend… I suppose I ought to have realize it’s ominous that forty thousand years of human language had failed to produce a word for our relationship.

Robert Harris

The only thing you can be sure of, Herr March, is that - whoever wins - still standing when the smoke of battle clears will be the banks of the cantons of Switzerland.

Robert Harris

The financial world is at the cutting edge of high technology.

Robert Harris

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

Robert Harris

If you go back, 'The Great Gatsby' would be a portrait of the rich and fortune made by business.

Robert Harris

Working 14 hours a day until you're 55 and missing your kids growing up is not what I would consider a recipe for happiness.

Robert Harris

If one tries to think about history, it seems to me - it's 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 you've moved slightly, your perspective has...

Robert Harris

History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.

Robert Harris

My parents were interested in history and the world. My father read Graham Greene and Georges Simenon and was a strong trade unionist and Labour supporter.

Robert Harris

I am sure future historians will say the biggest and most astonishing change in politics has been the embracing of all the tenets of Thatcherism by the party of Keir Hardie: trade union legislation, Europe, the replacement of Trident, 10 per cent tax...

Robert Harris

To tell a good story and to illuminate the world: the two things are completely linked. That is the point. That is what I've always wanted to do.

Robert Harris

The true currency of life is time, not money, and we've all got a limited stock of that.

Robert Harris

Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated.

Robert Harris

There's nothing more interesting than the details of someone's life.

Robert Harris

One gains a double benefit in writing about the past, conjuring up how things might have been, and at the same time acquiring a different perspective on the present.

Robert Harris

Humans have changed little over time. We think we've invented the modern world but they were making better speeches 2,000 years ago and grappling with issues of empire and terrorism.

Robert Harris

My father left school at 14, my mother at 13. My father was clever and well-read. He took a newspaper, always watched the news, discussed it all the time.

Robert Harris

You can't ever win the war on crime, or the war on terror. You can't repeal human nature.

Robert Harris

Storytelling has a narcotic power.

Robert Harris

It's easy enough to get into power. You can make promises and try to be all things to all people. But the moment you have to make decisions, you're going to annoy at least half of them. Whatever you do, in the end you're almost certain to be brought ...

Robert Harris