Thank you," she whispered, "for keeping yourself alive, soldier." "You're welcome," he whispered back.

Tatia: I think its too big to fit

You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing!

With my writing, because I live it, I have to be consumed by it, and that means you have to forget your other life, which is constantly pulling you from your work.

Courage, Alexan­der,” she whis­pered. “Courage, Ta­tiana.

Shura, I’m yours. You may not like it today, you may not want it tonight, you may wish for it all to be different now, but it remains, and I remain, as always, only yours. Nothing can change that. Not your wrath, your fists, your body or your death.

There is a very definite Russian heart in me; that never dies. I think you're born and you live your life with it and you die with it. I'm very much an American - my books tend to be about American things, but inside there's that sort of tortured, long-suffering, aching, constantly analysing Russian soul underneath the happy American exterior.