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Robert Harris Quotes

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Famous Robert Harris Quotes

“And then to my surprise in one of them I discovered the original manuscript of On Friendship. Puzzled, I unrolled it, thinking I must have brought it with me by mistake. But when I saw that Cicero had copied out at the top of the roll in his shaking hand a quotation from the text, on the importance of having friends, I realised it was a parting gift: If a man ascended into heaven and gazed upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvellous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself. And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight. Nature abhors solitude.”

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Book:Dictator
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“Lomeli si svegliò con una sensazione di catastrofe incombente in un angolo remoto della sua testa, come se tutte le sue ansie fossero attorcigliate su se stesse, pronte a saltargli addosso nell'attimo in cui fosse stato completamente sveglio. Andò in bagno e cercò di scacciarle con un'altra doccia bollente. Ma quando si mise davanti allo specchio per radersi erano ancora lì, in agguato, alle sue spalle.”

Inspirational Quotes
Book:Conclave
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“Major Hankey, secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, was brought in by Bongie, and placed in front of him on the table the large red and blue leather-bound volume known as the War Book, he opened it sceptically. On the title page it said: ‘Co-ordination of Departmental Action on the Occurrence of Strained Relations and on the Outbreak of War’. Hankey, a spare, neat figure who reminded him of his old school gym instructor, had spent years of his life devising this bureaucratic masterpiece. Remind me how it works. The Foreign Secretary formally warns the Cabinet that he can “forsee the danger of this country being involved in war in the near future” and that sets the machine in motion. Eleven government departments will then send out the warning telegram across the Empire – ports, railways, post offices, army headquarters, police stations, town halls and so forth – initiating the precautionary phase. The recipients have already been issued with instructions, so they know what to do when they receive the warning telegram. And what does this telegram say? “In the circumstance that Great Britain is at war with …, act upon instructions.” How many telegrams will be sent? …thousands. Pg93”

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Book:Precipice
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“Time. Now here is a peculiar commodity, boy. The measurement of time. Best accomplished, obviously, with a watch. But, lacking a watch, a man may use instead the ebb and flow of light and dark. Lacking, however, a window through which to see such movement, the reliance must be devolved upon some inner mechanism of the mind. But if the mind has received a shock, the mechanism is disturbed, and time becomes as the ground is to a drunkard, variable.”

ArchangelRobert Harris
Book:Archangel
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“He wondered what O'Brian would have been like in a real war, one in which he actually had to fight rather than just take pictures. Then he wondered what he would have been like. Most of the men he knew asked themselves that question, as if never having fought somehow made them incomplete - left a hole in their lives where a war should have been. Was it possible that this absence of war - marvellous though it was and so forth: that went without saying - was it possible that it had actually trivialised people? Because everything was so bloody trivial now, wasn't it? This was The Trivial Age. Politics was trivial. What people worried about was trivial - mortgages and pensions and the dangers of passive smoking. Jesus! - is this what we've been reduced to, worrying about passive smoking, when our parents and our grandparents had to worry about being shot or bombed? And then he began to feel guilty, because what was he implying here? That he wanted a war? ... He was glad it was over, of course, in a way - but at least while it was on people like him had known where they stood, could point to something and say: well, we may not know what we do believe in, but we don't believe in that.”

ArchangelRobert Harris
Book:Archangel
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“Have you ever seen fishermen when a storm is brewing on a great river? I have seen them many a time. In the face of a storm one group of fishermen will muster all their forces, encourage their fellows and boldly put out to meet the storm: 'Cheer up, lads, hold tight to the tiller, cut the waves, we'll pull her through!' But there is another type of fishermen - those who, on sensing a storm, lose heart, begin to snivel and demoralise their own ranks: 'What a misfortune, a storm is brewing; lie down, boys, in the bottom of the boat, shut your eyes; let's hope she'll make the shore somehow.”

ArchangelRobert Harris
Book:Archangel
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“What she needed was someone who would take her for the whole night. Someone decent and respectable, with an apartment of his own. But how could you ever judge what men were really like? It was the young ones with the swaggering walks and the loud mouths who ended up bursting into tears and showing you pictures of their girlfriends. It was the bespectacled bankers and lawyers who liked to knock you around.”

ArchangelRobert Harris
Book:Archangel
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