What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason

Of all human activities, writing is the one for which it is easiest to find excuses not to begin – the desk’s too big, the desk’s too small, there’s too much noise, there’s too much quiet, it’s too hot, too cold, too early, too late. I had learned over the years to ignore them all, and simply to start.

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

First comes an idea. Then, characters begin to evolve out of the landscape of that idea. And then, finally, characters dominate: plot is simply a function of what these people might do or be. Everything has to flow from their personalities; otherwise it will not be emotionally engaging, or plausible.

The true currency of life is time, not money, and we've all got a limited stock of that.

By dawn he had surrendered, gratefully, to the old inertia, the product of always seeing both sides of every question.

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!