Quotes from Ken Follett

Proportion is the heart of beauty.

You never know," Jack said speculatively. "There may come a time when savages like William Hamleigh aren't in power; when the laws protect the ordinary people instead of enslaving them; when the king makes peace instead of war. Think of that - a time when towns in England don't need walls!

When things are simple, fewer mistakes are made. The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.

She was unique: there was something abnormal about her, and it was that abnormal something that made her magnetic.

And here's my advice to you. If you get the chance of the mad kind of love, grab it with both hands, and to hell with the consequences.

We're all good when it suits us, he used to say: that doesn't count. It's when you want so badly to do something wrong—when you're about to make a fortune from a dishonest deal, or kiss the lovely lips of your neighbor's wife, or tell a lie to get yourself out of terrible trouble—that's when you need the rules. Your integrity is like a sword, he would say: you shouldn't wave it until you're about to put it to the test.

President Wilson says a leader must treat public opinion the way a sailor deals with the wind, using it to blow the ship in one direction or another, but never trying to go directly against it.

But the lesson of Abraham's story is that God demands the best we have to offer, that which is most precious to us.

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.

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

When you're thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.

It was an odd relationship, but then she was an extraordinary woman: a prioress who doubted much of what the church taught; an acclaimed healer who rejected medicine as practised by physicians; and a nun who made enthusiastic love to her man whenever she could get away with it. If I wanted a normal relationship, Merthin told himself, I should have picked a normal girl.

Little things please little minds.

She looked at his young face, so full of concern and tenderness; and she remembered why she had run away from everyone else and sought solitude here. She yearned to kiss him, and she saw the answering longing in his eyes. Every fiber of her body told her to throw herself into his arms, but she knew what she had to do. She wanted to say, I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage; but instead she said: "I think I'm going to marry Alfred.

You see, all that I ever held dear has been taken from me," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "And when you've lost everything-" Her facade began to crumble, and her voice broke, but she made herself carry on. "When you've lost everything, you've got nothing to lose.

Don't look so sad," she said. Her eyes were full of tears. "I can't help it," he said. "I am sad." "I'm sorry I've made you so unhappy." "Don't be sorry for that. Be sorry that you made me so happy. That's what hurts, woman. That you made me so happy.

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?'

It was an odd thing to do, to stand in a street in the hope of seeing someone who hardly knew him, but he did not want to move.

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

Man who betrayed you once would betray you twice.

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.

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

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

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.