It's great that in the German language I've sold almost 30 million books. Isn't that amazing?

I might not be a good socialist, any more than I'm a good Christian, but I am one.

Trusting someone was like holding a little water in your cupped hands - it was so easy to spill the water, and you could never get it back.

I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn't happen, but it might have.

World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.

I went and looked at one of these great cathedrals one day, and I was blown away by it. From there I became interested in how cathedrals were built, and from there I became interested in the society that built the medieval cathedral. It occurred to me at some point that the story of the building of a cathedral could be a great popular novel.

Why did people manufacture trouble when there was already so much of it in the world?