Top 93 Quotes & Sayings by Ken Follett

People are much more complicated in real life, but my characters are as subtle and nuanced as I can make them. But if you say my characters are too black and white, you've missed the point. Villains are meant to be black-hearted in popular novels. If you say I have a grey-hearted villain, then I've failed.

I'm a great planner, so before I ever write chapter 1, I work out what happens in every chapter and who the characters are. I usually spend a year on the outline.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next.

I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing.

A very good editor is almost a collaborator.

There was a very serious communist strain among American intellectuals before the war. America was a more tolerant place in those days, and Communists were not treated as pariahs. That ended with the McCarthy era.

I wanted to be some kind of captain of industry. Then I wanted to be in advertising, and then I wanted to be a newspaper reporter.

I started writing stories in my spare time.

There is a real connection between Philosopy and fiction.

An awful lot of thriller writers write women rather badly. So just doing it OK gets a lot of credit.

The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying.

Well, for people who want to write best sellers, the best advice I can give is to say that the novel has to engage the reader emotionally.

I aim to be translucent, so you don't notice the words, just their meaning. I haven't much insight into people's motivations.

With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn't know that then.

World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.

Culture clash is terrific drama.

When I'm writing a woman character, I don't think, 'What would a woman do?' I just think, 'What would this character do in this situation?'

I read mostly fiction, a lot of 19th-century novels.

With the World War II era, there's so much written material to draw on. When you go back to the 14th century, you have to imagine more.

I wake up with the story in my head, so I really like to be at my desk about five minutes after I wake up. So I don't get dressed. I put on a bathrobe, I make tea and sit at my desk.

My favorite period is World War II, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era.

There is no point in asking a man a question until you have established whether he has any reason to lie to you.

After a certain point, most people, including editors, will tell you everything you do is great.

We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary.

I use a professional researcher in New York who does all the legwork, all that stuff which would take me days and weeks of calling, waiting for people to call back.

I might not be a good socialist, any more than I'm a good Christian, but I am one.

The thriller is the most popular literary genre of the 20th century.

Movies have influenced all writers, not just thriller writers.

Most of my stories have some basis in fact.

For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words.

I went and looked at one of these great cathedrals one day, and I was blown away by it. From there I became interested in how cathedrals were built, and from there I became interested in the society that built the medieval cathedral. It occurred to me at some point that the story of the building of a cathedral could be a great popular novel.

James Bond is quite serious about his drinks and clothing and cigarettes and food and all that sort of thing. There is nothing wry or amused about James Bond.

The CIA's research program is described in a book called The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.

I am very fond of Edith Wharton. She's quite high brow but also a great storyteller. My favorite is 'The House of Mirth.' I also like 'The Reef.'

It's great that in the German language I've sold almost 30 million books. Isn't that amazing?

In my books, women often solve the problem. Even if the woman is not the hero, she's a strong character. She does change the plot. She'll often rescue the male character from some situation.

I enjoy learning technical details.

I start with the history, and I ask myself, 'What are the great turning points? What are the big dramatic scenes that are essential to telling the story?'

I have quite a few different Bibles. Having rejected my parents' religion, I still think the King James Bible is the most important work of literature in English. None of us can help being influenced by it.

Listen, I wrote 10 unsuccessful books before I broke through, so I'm looking all the time to keep my books fascinating. I want to write what people want to read, not push any message.

I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn't happen, but it might have.

One of the hardest things for me, now that I'm famous, is finding people who can read my stuff and give me an honest critique.

I don't think there's any great mystery to writing female characters, so long as you talk to them. If you lived in a monastery and never met any women, maybe it would be difficult.

Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative.

Be a perfectionist.

To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color.

Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.

When you've lost everything, you've got nothing to lose.

The duck swallows the worm, the fox kills the duck, the men shoot the fox, and the devil hunts the men.

She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.

you should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.

Knotty theological questions are the least worrying of problems to me. Why? Because they will be resolved in the hereafter, and meanwhile they can be safely shelved.

But desperate people find courage.

Proportion is the heart of beauty.

Why do you have to be the same as the others? ...Most of them are stupid.

Trusting someone was like holding a little water in your cupped hands - it was so easy to spill the water, and you could never get it back.

Hard work should be rewarded by good food.

The degradation to which you subject others comes back, sooner or later, to haunt you.

Fear could paralyse. Action was the antidote.