Martin Cruz Smith quotes:

Of course the biggest mafia in Russia has always been the government; in Soviet times, the Communist Party, and now a circle of former KGB and FSB.

High Concept' means a book or a film whose core idea can be stated in a single sentence, such as 'Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are twins.' Or, 'Arnold is pregnant.'

I've got a book of poetry by the bed, one of these big collections that goes back to the Greeks and Romans.

High Concept means a book or a film whose core idea can be stated in a single sentence, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are twins. Or, Arnold is pregnant.

As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.

I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is.

The government is shutting down the coal industry, they say it's cheaper to draw nuclear power off the French grid and cheaper to buy coal from Colombia.

Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.

What's wonderful is to read the different translations - some done in 1600 and some in 1900 - of the same passage. It's fascinating to watch the same tale repeated in such a different way by two different centuries.

The most beautiful women in the world were African.

Then there was the whole concept of coal mining, which is a culture unto itself, the most dangerous occupation in the world, and which draws and develops a certain kind of man.

If you take the contempt some Americans have for yuppies and multiply it by 10 you might come close to understanding their attitude towards the City, as they call it - London, the people of the south.

Julian Assange is certainly no hero. The man behind WikiLeaks issued threats as if he were Dr. No bent on ending civilization as we know it. We will find him, lock him up, and throw away the key. But give the man credit; for a week the truth was laid bare.

I feel very bad about getting things wrong.

Then years back, when I moved to California, I happened to see a book about fashions of 19th-century Victorian England, only four pages of which was devoted to the dress of the working class.

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant.

I have another Russian idea, too, with a place and a period, so I guess I have enough to keep me busy for quite some time, especially considering that I'm such a slow writer.

It was like passing the scene of a highway accident and being relieved to learn that nobody had been seriously injured.

The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself.

The research is the most interesting part"¦ That's how I work. I go some place and I walk it and I talk to people until I find what I've come for. Or not. Fortunately, I tend to find what I'm after.

To capture the human cost of fallen empire with all its horror and absurdity, Sheets offers the right combination: the political insight of a top reporter and the power of a novelist.

He never had been good at arguing with women; they tapped into pools of resentment over slights that had steeped for years.

It was like a Russian party, Arkady thought. People got drunk, recklessly confessed their love, spilled their festering dislike, had hysterics, marched out, were dragged back in and revived with brandy. It wasn't a French salon.

Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.

I hate to be categorized.

Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire.

Kali is the goddess of destruction, the Clawed Hands, the Blood Drinker... And that's one side of her, as it is for any god. If you knew her for thousands of years you'd know she could be all colors. The sky is black at night, but if your eyes were good enough, they could see the different lights of a million stars. Death is part of her because death is part of life.

You have to be an outsider to write,