Writing is a solitary occupation.

And yes, there's a simplicity to writing books because you're not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee.

Writing is a solitary occupation.

I'm fortunate that the books sell, but even more fortunate to live in Chatham, to be very happily married and to have, on the whole, a fairly clear conscience.

Television is a young person's medium.

So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries.

Book tours and research provide a lot of travel - too much, I sometimes think, but we do take vacations.

One book at a time... though I'm usually doing the research for others while I'm writing, but that sort of research is fairly desultory and I like to stick to the book being written - and writing a book concentrates the mind so the research is more productive.

Agents will read unpublished work because they might make money, and that's their job. It isn't mine.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the first book had not sold... doesn't bear thinking about, but I suppose we'd have made it work somehow.

Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.

I'll happily mentor anyone who wants mentoring, and most of that goes on by internet rather than face to face.

Looking back, of course, it was irresponsible, mad, forlorn, idiotic, but if you don't take chances then you'll never have a winning hand, and I've no regrets.

It's fun. I sit down every day and tell stories. Some folk would kill to get that chance.

So far it's 43 books in 25 years.

What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.

I know nothing about producing TV drama and any involvement on my part is liable to prove an obstacle to the producers, so I prefer to be a cheerleader and let them get on with it.

Anyone who claims to have an entirely clear conscience is almost certainly a bore.

Then you start another book and suddenly the galley proofs of the last one come in and you have to wrench your attention away from what you're writing and try to remember what you were thinking when you wrote the previous one.

Judy couldn't move to Britain for family reasons, so I had to come to the States, and the U.S. government wouldn't give me a Green Card, so I airily told her I'd write a book.

I volunteered for this life, wanted it and am not going to bitch about it now that I've got it.

At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

We all suffer from dreams.

Madness ends sometimes. The Gods decree it, not man.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

The Vichy government was under occupation and carried out the orders of the German occupier.

Life: my favorite occupation.

We expect President Bush to implement his own vision of a two-state solution, the birth of the Palestinian State and the ending of the occupation that started in 1967.

Film is not an easy occupation. There's a lot of occupations that are difficult and film is one of them.

The mercy caravans are through there the medicine refugees flowing out. It makes the United States look very bad here. And much more like an occupation force than it did before.

To such idle talk it might further be added: that whenever a certain exclusive occupation is coupled with specific shortcomings, it is likewise almost certainly divorced from certain other shortcomings.

We won the war, but we are losing the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. It is past time for a new approach, one that relies on accountability, responsibility, and phasing down the scope of our military commitment.

There are only two ways to remove the president - if he violates the constitution or commits high treason. How could anyone accuse me of treason after I had terminated Israel's occupation of South Lebanon in 2000.

The majority of them give the impression of being men who have been drafted into the job during a period of martial law and are only waiting for the end of the emergency to get back to a really congenial occupation such as slum demolition or debt collecting.

My occupation now, I suppose, is jail inmate.

Writing is a solitary occupation.

It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation.

The occupation and robbery of a nation occurs under the illusion of freeing its citizens from brutal oppression.

The dark outside world of Paris under German occupation exerted a strong containing pressure.

There is no other occupation in the world that so closely resembled enslavement as the career of a film star.

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

We oppose occupation of land by force and we believe in dialogue as the method for regaining Arab rights. This is the spirit of the Great Arab Revolt.

The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.

It is a fact that all women contribute more to marriage than men; for the most part they have to change their place of living, their method of work, a great many women today changing their occupation entirely on marriage; and they must even change their name.

That can be achieved by termination of Israeli occupation to the territories according to the international resolutions related, so the Palestinian State can be establish with Jerusalem as capital for such State.

We discussed the history of postwar Japan and how Japan had missed an opportunity to build a more functional democracy because of the focus on fighting communism driven in large part by the American occupation.

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.

It's also much clearer how much damage the occupation of Iraq is doing to America's reputation and prestige around the world; and that's just starting now to hit home in the United States.