“She grounded me. I have become very disciplined now. I would never have written the books without her. Definitely the cleverest thing I ever did was to marry Santa. Maybe it's the only cleve...”

“To make a Frankenstein monster of a complex character like Stalin would have been too simplistic. I wanted to show who he was and, if you like, how he happened.”

“In 1942, the Germans were running out of fuel. They were advancing so fast across the grasslands, the hot grasslands of south Russia, and the Russians were running out of tanks. And so both...”

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me...”

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.”

“So many books, so little time.”

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”