Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.

But other vampire stories? Well, no, I really haven't read too many, and I can't say I'm crazy about romantic vampires anyway - to me the vampire is simply an evil monster.

A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!

I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.

German readers are much like Brits or Americans: They read for the thrill of it, the occasional shudder down the spine, knowing it's not real - but looking over their shoulders anyway, just in case.

Now, after 18 years, not a sign of Lovecraft in my work.

Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.

I should think just about every young writer - which I was at the time - would be influenced by HPL. As an American writer of weird fiction, he was at the top of the class.

But there's a little guy who sits astride my brain with a whip, and if I'm away from the machine for more than a couple of hours during the day, this little guy's lashing away.

If I had killed Crow off I can think of least six novels I would never have written, 400,000 words' worth of very necessary experience.

If, like Harry Keogh, I could talk to the dead - God, there are an awful lot of people I would like to speak to! Not least my father. Being in the army for 22 years, I didn't see enough of him, and I know there are a great many things I could have learned from him.

But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all.

And I have to consider myself fortunate, because there are plenty of writers who spend most of a lifetime looking for that certain something without ever finding it.

We've got one life and the older we get the more we come to realize how short it is.

Now, when I was in the Army, writing was my hobby.

The Army was my bread and butter.

I have friends who read my books in Greek.

There are lots of other things that I haven't done, places I haven't seen. So eventually I'll have to find time for those things while there still is time.

The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs.

Natural resources are so vast that no single individual or business is going to protect them; they don't have an incentive to.

The bronze powder business, however, no longer required my personal attention, and was well managed by those I had chosen as the guardians of a secret, which was long and honourably kept.

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.

Howard Hughes himself was a regular at the restaurant, and in a way it became his headquarters, too. Howard had recently relocated to Las Vegas, so when he wanted to do business in Los Angeles, he went into the back of our restaurant to use the telephone.

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

We mean by "politics" the people's business - the most important business there is.

Slovakia's joining the OECD in 1999 is totally dependent on meeting economic reforms required such as transparency and legislation that permits fair and open conduct of trade and business.

The way the business things work in Russia is you have to meet people, you have to go through a certain amount of etiquette and business things are done just simply by a shake of the hand and whether they like you or not.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

It costs a great deal of money to do a musical, and the more money involved, the more big business influences the artform.

It's a very hard and competitive business in which you have to fight every day in order to impose yourself.

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

Chicago kept industry, attracted new business, became the center for convention trade and transportation.

I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

You have to be a star to be in this business.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it's business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don't love what you're doing and you can't give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You'll be an old man before you know it.

I have never had anything done. I've been asked if I had breast implants. Whether I did or not, it's nobody's business but my own.

You just can't get too focused on worrying about what's going to happen in the next quarter. You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.

They all went into the bar business. Which was a mistake, because they began to sip at the merchandise and it set them back, set us all back. Well, them more than I.

There was a time when I was wondering about this business of going public, so I visited about a half-dozen companies in the Boston area, all of them formed by MIT faculty and all had gone public.

A business of high principle generates greater drive and effectiveness because people know that they can do the right thing decisively and with confidence.

As a goalkeeper you need to be good at organising the people in front of you and motivating them. You need to see what's going on and react to the threats. Just like a good manager in business.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.

This free will business is a bit terrifying anyway. It's almost pleasanter to obey, and make the most of it.