Of course the biggest mafia in Russia has always been the government; in Soviet times, the Communist Party, and now a circle of former KGB and FSB.

Then there was the whole concept of coal mining, which is a culture unto itself, the most dangerous occupation in the world, and which draws and develops a certain kind of man.

As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.

The most beautiful women in the world were African.

I have another Russian idea, too, with a place and a period, so I guess I have enough to keep me busy for quite some time, especially considering that I'm such a slow writer.

Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.

The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself.

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant.

Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.

I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is.

Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire.

We can no longer create the feeling of an era...of time being particular to one spot in time.

Single Christians living in purity and community are billboards for the sufficiency of Jesus

Street performances?""A little singing. A little martial arts. Some interpretive dance.""Wow.""I know! The Portuguese have taste.

Eternal boyhood is the dream of a depressing percentage of American males, and the locker room is the temple where they worship arrested development.

Opinion is a flitting thing But Truth outlasts the Sun.

All style is personal - that's what distinguishes it from fashion.

I've been so blessed to work with the people I have.

I'm not the type who spends his free time in training camp playing with his Playstation or playing cards on trips. The other players thought it was odd: There he is, reading again.

There is a city in which you find everything you desire-handsome people, pleasures, ornaments of every kind-all that the natural person craves. However, you cannot find a single wise person there.

We should never use the truth to wound.