I invented the historical spy novel.

Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.

If you can live in Paris, maybe you should.

I write what I call 'novels of consolation' for people who are bright and sophisticated.

I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past.

You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.

I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.