I have never been much of a patriot. My father would not have allowed such a thing while he lived, and his death insured that his wish was carried out. Piter commanded far more affection and loyalty from me than the nation as a whole. But that night, running across the unplowed fields of winter wheat, with the Fascist invaders behind us and the dark Russian woods before us, I felt a surge of pure love for my country. We ran for the forest, crashing through the stalks of wheat, beneath the rising moon and the stars spinning farther and farther away, alone beneath the godless sky.

With the movies, people are not going to wait around. The deadline is a deadline. In publishing it's more a polite suggestion.

Once you realise that heroes die, everything becomes that much more terrifying.

A certain luxury when you get to writing a novel is to have the space to have your characters just banter.

She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. He mouth was cold, her lips rough from the winter wind, and if the mystics are right and we are doomed to repeat our squalid lives ad infinitum, at least I will always return to that kiss

Fiction novels, that's my game.

I'm just not a natural teacher.