Ken Follett Quotes
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The CIA's research program is described in a book called The Search for the Manchurian Candidate.
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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.
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After a certain point, most people, including editors, will tell you everything you do is great.
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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.
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Movies have influenced all writers, not just thriller writers.
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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?'
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Be a perfectionist.
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Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative.
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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.
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I started writing stories in my spare time.
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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.
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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?'
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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.
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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.
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There is no point in asking a man a question until you have established whether he has any reason to lie to you.
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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.
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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.
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With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn't know that then.
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There is a real connection between Philosopy and fiction.
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It's great that in the German language I've sold almost 30 million books. Isn't that amazing?