Robert Harris Quotes & Sayings

There are occasions when losing is a victory, so long as there is a fight. — 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

Time. Now here is a peculiar commodity, boy. The measurement of time. Best accomplished, obviously, with a watch. But, lacking a watch, a man may use instead the ebb and flow of light and dark. Lacking, however, a window through which to see such movement, the reliance must be devolved upon some inner mechanism of the mind. But if the mind has received a shock, the mechanism is disturbed, and time becomes as the ground is to a drunkard, variable. — Robert Harris

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

A voice came out of the darkness.
'Don't make it so wide. It's not a grave. You're making work for yourself. — Robert Harris

....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. — Robert Harris

Often the most powerful men in a state can pass down a street unrecognized, while the most famous bask in feted impotence — Robert Harris

It has always been my temperament to prefer a tiny amount of the excellent to a plenitude of the mediocre ... — Robert Harris

She didn't say goodbye. She set off up the street, dodging the pedestrians, walking fast. He watched her, waiting to see if she might look back. But of course she didn't. He knew she wouldn't. She wasn't the looking-back kind. — Robert Harris

Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it would've 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. — Robert Harris

A book unwritten is a delightful universe of infinite possibilities. Set down one word, however, and it immediately becomes earthbound. Set down one sentence and it's halfway to being just like every other bloody book that's ever been written. — Robert Harris

He was a devoted follower of the teachings of Epicurus - "that pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily" - although I hasten to add that he was an Epicurean not in the commonly misunderstood sense, as a seeker after luxury, but in the true meaning, as a pursuer of what the Greeks call ataraxia, or freedom from disturbance. He consequently avoided arguments and unpleasantness of any kind (needless to say, he was unmarried) and desired only to contemplate philosophy by day and dine by night with his cultured friends. He — Robert Harris

But it is one of the tricks of the successful politician to be able to hold many things in mind at once and to switch between them as the need arises; — Robert Harris

Any man who is truly worthy must consider himself unworthy. — Robert Harris

At that instant i knew there was no horror the world could offer - no war, no genocide, no famine, no childhood cancer - to which Sidney Kroll would not see the funny side — Robert Harris

Unlike the Holocaust, Stalin's murders are forgotten: dust blowing in the wind. — Robert Harris

If long hitting is the thing that causes the spectators to whistle through their teeth in wonderment, why not play tournaments up and down an expansive stadium? — Robert Harris

Nowadays, of course, most senators employ a slave or two two out their speeches; I have even heard of some who have no idea of what they are going to say until the next is place in front of them; how these fellows can call themselves statesman defeats me — Robert Harris

A crock of shit, Rick had called it. But actually this was worse. Shit, to quote Gore Vidal, has its own integrity. This was a crock of nothing. — Robert Harris

The destination of the journey could not be altered, only the manner in which one approached it - whether one chose to walk erect or to be dragged complaining through the dust. — Robert Harris

From the Latin, con clavis: 'with a key'. — Robert Harris

No one can really claim to know politics properly until he has stayed up all night writing a speech for delivery the following day. While the world sleeps, the orator paces by lamplight, wondering what madness ever brought him to this occupation in the first place. Arguments are prepared and discarded. The exhausted mind ceases to have any coherent grip upon the purpose of the enterprise, so that often--usually an hour or two after midnight--there comes a point where failing to turn up, feigning illness, and hiding at home seem the only realistic options. And then, somehow, just asa panic and humiliation beckon, the parts cohere, and there it is: a speech. A second-rate orator now retires gratefully to bed. A Cicero stays up and commits it to memory. — 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

I lay aside the papers. Really, it is beyond hypocrisy; it is beyond even lying: it has become a psychosis. — Robert Harris

Storytelling has a narcotic power. — Robert Harris

The natural impulse of men is to follow and whoever has the strongest sense of purpose will always dominate. — Robert Harris

Kelso's hangover had gone, to be replaced by that familiar phase of post-alcoholic euphoria - always in the past, his most productive time of day - a feeling that alone was enough to make getting drunk worthwhile. — Robert Harris

I read a lot of bad books- books so bad that they aren't even published,which is quite a feat, when you consider what is published.
- The Ghost, Robert Harris. — Robert Harris

You can't make sense of the present unless a part of you lives in the past. — Robert Harris

Writers of fiction should stick to writing, not pop up on panel shows or as a talking head. — Robert Harris

Against the alchemy of two naked bodies in a bed in the darkness, and against all the complex longings and attachments and commitments such intimacy might arouse, he had nothing with which to fight. — Robert Harris

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

As praetor, Cicero was expected to take in promising pupils from good families to study law with him, and in May, after the Senate recess, a new young intern of sixteen joined his chambers. This was Marcus Caelius Rufus from Interamnia, the son of a wealthy banker and prominent election official of the Velina tribe. Cicero agreed, largely as a political favor, to supervise the boy's training — Robert Harris

People perish. Books are immortal. — Robert Harris

In the concealed darkness of the bag her fingers began to work her rosary, clumsily at first but with increasing dexterity - Push. Click. Slide. Press - — Robert Harris

You cant build on a mass grave. Human beings are better than that - we have to be better than that - I do believe, don't you?" Charlie McGuire, Fatherland — Robert Harris

I have put out my books and now my house has a soul. — Robert Harris

Bachelors of forty are society's stray cats. We are taken in by households and fed and made a fuss of; — Robert Harris

I sense that I am dawdling in this narrative, having already reached my eighth roll of Hieratica, and need to speed it up a little, else either I shall die on the job, or you will be worn out reading. — Robert Harris

It was an unnatural time to be awake, ... It meant nothing good. He associated it with emergency, bereavement, conspiracy, flight; the sad skulk away at the end of a one-night affair. — Robert Harris

I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power. — Robert Harris

I think a lot of us feel, when we look at the Dow Jones plunging, alienated - you do feel as if we're in the grip of some alien force that slipped human control. — Robert Harris

And so we drifted towards calamity. At times, Cicero was shrewd enough to see it. "Can a constitution devised centuries ago to replace a monarchy, and based upon a citizens' militia, possibly hope to run an empire whose scope is beyond anything ever dreamed of by its framers? Or must the existence of standing armies and the influx of inconceivable wealth inevitably destroy our democratic system? — Robert Harris

History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events. — 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 changed. The mountains are the same, but they look very different. — Robert Harris

That young man seeks opportunities to test his principles as readily as a drunk picks fights in a bar. — Robert Harris

You are a bird of ill-omen, thought Kelso. You circle the world and wherever you land there is famine and death and destruction: in an earlier and less credulous age, the local citizens would have gathered at the first sight of you and driven you off with stones - — Robert Harris

Golf requires only a few simple Rules and Regulations to guide the players in the true nature of its sporting appeal. The spirit of the game is its own referee. — Robert Harris

I think that whenever a nation feels itself to be at is zenith, it starts to feel a creeping sense of anxiety. — Robert Harris

In the absence of genius there is always craftsmanship. — Robert Harris

My four golden principles are more important now than ever: take it one step at a time; approach the matter dispassionately; avoid a rush to judgement; confide in nobody until there is hard evidence. — Robert Harris

I see myself as the literary equivalent of a skilled lathe-operator, or a basket-weaver; a potter, maybe: I make mildly diverting objects that people want to buy. — Robert Harris

Like interviewing a new cleaner. Do you want someone who can give you the history of cleaning and the theory of cleaning, or do you want someone who'll just get down and clean your fucking house? They chose you because they think you'll clean their fucking house. — Robert Harris

Their souls were contagious ... Bloodsuckers, spiders and vampires: that was what Lenin called them. — Robert Harris

Cicero himself appeared, hand in hand with Tullia, nodding good morning to everyone, greeting each by name ("the first rule in politics, Tiro: never forget a face"). — Robert Harris

History is too important to be left to the historians. — Robert Harris

Tape is the archiving champ and has been for decades. Reliable, less expensive than disks and available in large-scale robotic systems that store petabytes. — Robert Harris

Down in the cellar the Gestapo were licensed to practice was the Ministry of Justice called 'heightened interrogation'. The rules had been drawn up by civilised men in warm offices and they stipulated the presence of a doctor. — Robert Harris

What are the only weapons I possess, Tiro?" he asked me, and then he answered his own question. "These." he said, gesturing at his books. "Words. Caesar and Pompey have their soldiers, Crassus his wealth, Clodius his bullies on the street. My only legions are my words. By language I rose, and by language I shall survive. — Robert Harris

However this war may end, we have won the war against you; none of you will be left to bear witness, but even if some of you survive, the world would not believe him. There will perhaps be suspicions, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain and some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed: they will say they are the exaggerations of Allied propaganda and will believe us, who will deny everything, and not you. We will be the ones to dictate the history of the Lagers." -- SS Officer, quoted in The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi — Robert Harris

Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price. — Robert Harris

In fact fear is probably the strongest human emotion, period. Whoever woke at four in the morning because they were feeling happy? — Robert Harris

Then came a volley of colorful abuse, delivered in such an imperious voice, at at such a volume, that Terentia's distant ancestor, who had commanded the Roman line against Hannibal at Cannae a century and a half before, must surely have sat bolt upright in his tomb. — 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 down by your own character traits. — Robert Harris

The Greek philosopher Epictetus recognised this two thousand years ago when he wrote: 'What disturbs and alarms man are not the things but his opinions and fancies about the things. — Robert Harris

A comrade who deserts a comrade is a cowardly dog, and all such dogs should die a dog's death, comrade - — Robert Harris

Suicide leaves everyone feeling guilty. — Robert Harris

He was unable to get it out of his mind. Was it really possible that he had spent the past thirty years worshipping the church rather than God? Because that, in essence, was the accusation Benitez had leveled against him. — Robert Harris

Death solves all problems - no man, no problem. - J. V. Stalin, 1918 — Robert Harris

The financial markets tend to be just a backdrop for a novel, for a heist or something that isn't necessarily integral to it. On the whole, I don't think the financial world has been well served by novels. — Robert Harris

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

You find out what you think by talking to yourself. — Robert Harris

Politics? Boring? Politics is history on the wing! What other sphere of human activity calls forth all that is most noble in men's souls, and all that is most base? Or has such excitement? Or more vividly exposes our strengths and weaknesses? Boring? You might as well say that life itself is boring! — Robert Harris

I've always just wanted to earn my living by writing. The best thing is to go into my study in the morning and put words together. — Robert Harris

Nature has granted man no better gift than the shortness of life. The senses grow dull, the limbs are numb, sight, bearing, gait, even the teeth and alimentary organs die before we do, and yet this period is reckoned a portion of life. - Pg. 82 — Robert Harris

I like to take people you wouldn't really think people would write novels about: an aqueduct engineer, a code-breaker, a hedge-fund manager. It's in those sorts of lives that I find more fascination than in a CIA operative or a Marine or something like that. — Robert Harris

who had the advantage of seeming to be an American without the disadvantage of actually being one; and Adeyemi, — Robert Harris

Any rash fool can be a hero if he sets no value on his life, or hasn't the wit to appreciate danger. But to understand the risk, perhaps even to flinch at first, but then to summon the strength to face them down - that in my opinion is the most commendable form of valour — Robert Harris

Cicero smiled at us. 'The art of life is to deal with problems as they arise, rather than destory one's spirit by worrying about them too far in advance. Especially tonight. — Robert Harris

Jericho lowered himself carefully to his knees. He covered his eyes and moved his lips like all the others, but he had no faith in any of it. Faith in mathematics, yes; faith in logic, of course; faith in the trajectory of the stars, yes, perhaps. But faith in a God, Christian or otherwise? — Robert Harris

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

His scars and his tattoos were the medals of his lifetime. He was proud to wear them. — Robert Harris

For them, it was just an ordinary miracle. — Robert Harris

What starts as gratitude quickly becomes dependency and ends as entitlement — Robert Harris

My literary career was a fluke. Utterly unexpected. — 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

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

From the subjective perspective, he may seem cruel, even wicked. But the glory of the man is to be found in the objective perspective. — Robert Harris

History wasn't made without taking risks, that much he knew. So maybe sometimes you had to take risks to write it, too? — Robert Harris

The foundations of Empire are often occasions of woe; their dismemberment, always. — Robert Harris

Mother Nature is punishing us, ... , for our greed and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mine shafts into her and drag out her entrails - and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finer. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger? - Pliny, Pg. 176 — Robert Harris

In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair. — Robert Harris

...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 hasn't 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... — Robert Harris

One cannot see any world leader who has got a grip on the financial markets these days. They're too big, too fast. I think that's quite scary. — Robert Harris

But only a fool sails into combat with nature — Robert Harris

more enemies, more honour. — Robert Harris

What fascinates people isn't policy- who cares about policy? What fascinates people is always people- the detail of another person's life. — Robert Harris

Civilization was a relentless war that man was doomed to lose eventually. - Pg. 195 — Robert Harris

Outwardly, I hope, I wear my usual mask of detachment, even irony, for there has never been a situation,however dire, even this one, that did not strike me as containing at least some element of the human comedy. — Robert Harris