Quotes from Tibor Fischer

The one big drawback to speaking German is that, by in large, you can only speak it with Germans.

The big question is why do we need the news? People who don't know who's in goverment still want the news. Is it because listening to the news allows us to have opinions? Is it because it gives us something to talk about, the human weather? Most readers who put down a paper certainly feel qualified to rule the world.

Perfection is only chance.

Gyuri had dropped church much in the same way he had stopped believing in Santa Claus; there came a point where it was impossible to take it seriously.

This is how I became rich: I was at home at four-thirty on a Friday afternoon. Rich? Rich for many. Comfortable for some. Comfortable well-off I would say.

Arriva il momento quando l'astuzia e la spiritosaggine sono spazzate via. Si trema all'idea che si sarà rimpinzati di finali tristi fino a farceli uscire dalle orecchie. Quelli che la gente considera finali lieti non sono, naturalmente, finali: i finali sono per definizione tristi.

This was surely the real boon of a religious upbringing: it gave you a number to ring in emergencies, which was some consolation, even if no one answered.

It would be so nice to have a real choice, fumed Gyuri. It was like Hungary being between Germany and the Soviet Union. What sort of choice was that? Which language would you like your firing squad to speak?

There are those who say clothes are frippery, jumped-.up nothingness. They're wrong. They say that style only makes you feel invincible and successful, but if it makes you feel invincible and successful, isn't that enough? Which is easier, buying clothes or becoming invincible and successful? And the bonus of feeling invincible and successful is that others think you are too.

I wouldn't like to have to translate Márai myself. At times, his ordering of words can be as intricate and polished as Ovid's. It is worth pointing out that the original Hungarian title of Embers is "Candles Burn to the End" - a little unwieldy, perhaps, in English, but a title better suited to a novel about how the important emotions never end until death.

Orbán decides to visit his in-laws in Szolnok. I'd never been to Szolnok, so I tag along

Nice seeing you, Eddie. We must have lunch sometime.' I've always found it curious how many people, when they are clearly in an unrivalled physical and mental state to arrange a lunch or drink, don't do so, but merely say that they should.

New York City has fantastic restaurants and, unlike London, a lot of the best restaurants are relatively cheap.

Most Hungarians know what it was to live in a dictatorship; some are old enough to have known both fascism and communism. No one wants to go back to that.

Some years ago, I fired my agent, Andrew Wylie, alias The Jackal. I want to stress this wasn't an amicable parting of the ways or a hankering on my part for fresh representation. I fired him because his agency wasn't doing enough for me.