John Le
John Le
across ford join listen people somebody talking
I want to be like Ford Madox Ford. I want to be talking to somebody across a fire, and I want him to join me and listen to me, and if he is fidgeting in his chair, I know I am not doing my job. I am a storyteller, and I know most people like a story.
production public school second taught
There was an ITV television production of the second novel I wrote, called 'Murder of Quality.' It was a little murder story set in a public school - I'd once taught at Eton, and I used that stuff.
believe watched
I do believe very much in movie as a one-man-show. I think that where I've watched movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.
began foreign understood wrote
I began writing when I was still in the British Foreign Service, and it was then understood that even if you wrote about butterfly collecting, you used another name.
death suffering systematic
It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D.
war long cold
The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.
thinking given blasphemy
I don't think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity.
people secret secretive
People are very secretive - secret even from themselves.
country vaccines systematic
The pharmaceutical corporations are engaged in the systematic corruption of the medical profession, country by country
believe two america
How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre.
wise tongue experts
A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.
writing mountain impossible
There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.
order chaos stills
I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention.
thinking i-can
I can't think of anybody worse to live with.