Robert Harris
Robert Harris
British author, journalist, and BBC reporter who became known for his best-selling historical novel, Fatherland. The work is a thriller set during World War II.
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth7 March 1957
beyond luxury spend within
Within reason, I can write what I like and spend as long doing it as is necessary. That is a luxury beyond price.
men luxury hands
Power brings a man many luxuries, but a clean pair of hands is seldom among them.
lives marine novels operative people sorts
I like to take people you wouldn't really think people would write novels about: an aqueduct engineer, a code-breaker, a hedge-fund manager. It's in those sorts of lives that I find more fascination than in a CIA operative or a Marine or something like that.
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It was a minor injury. He was running when it happened. We took him to hospital in South Africa because we just wanted to make sure he was okay, and that done, he is now back to work.
attitude change fling hands holding men mores quite social time
Social mores change all the time. In the mid-1970s, it would've been astonishing, say, to see two men holding hands in the streets. And the attitude to having a fling with a girl, or whatever, was quite different then.
emotion emotions family people swayed sympathy
Those two people were swayed more by sympathy and emotion for the family than anything objective. That's my feeling.
basically black crisis forget people poverty unless
Black poverty has persisted and become intractable but unless we have some crisis like this, we basically forget about these people -- out of sight, out of mind.
life
There's nothing more interesting than the details of someone's life.
equivalent people
I see myself as the literary equivalent of a skilled lathe-operator, or a basket-weaver; a potter, maybe: I make mildly diverting objects that people want to buy.
band best freshman marching relationships since year
I've been in marching band since my freshman year and the best part of it for me has been the relationships I've made.
appear engaged gone love might politics scared side trench warfare
I used to love politics. I can't say I do any more. All the fun has gone out of it. Each side is engaged in this trench warfare of managerialism. They're all too scared to say anything that might make them appear something other than completely bland.
acquiring benefit double gains might perspective time
One gains a double benefit in writing about the past, conjuring up how things might have been, and at the same time acquiring a different perspective on the present.
body isolated means profoundly protect
Leaders today are isolated by phalanxes of body guards. It's profoundly undemocratic, the way they have used terrorism as a means to protect themselves.
enjoy gets people playing ready speed
Many people don't see this kind of speed in our league. When you see it, it rattles you, it gets you ready and that's why I enjoy playing them (Braves).