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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.

Ken Follett

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Ken Follett
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: June 5
Author
Novelist
Writer
Cardiff
Wales
Kenneth Martin Follett
Feels
Happen
Imaginary
Real
Situation
Readers
Like
Didn
Historical
Happens
Characters
Around
Reader
Character
Events
Might
Probably
Feel
Create

More quotes by Ken Follett

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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.
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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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I imagined it. I wrote it. But I guess I never thought I'd see it.
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But the lesson of Abraham's story is that God demands the best we have to offer, that which is most precious to us.
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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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She wanted to say 'I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage'.
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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.
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My favorite period is World War II, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era.
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I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing.
Ken Follett
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Most of my stories have some basis in fact.
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Culture clash is terrific drama.
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Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.
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you should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.
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Hard work should be rewarded by good food.
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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.
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A baby was like a revolution, Grigori thought: you could start one, but you could not control how it would turn out.
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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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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?
Ken Follett
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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.
Ken Follett
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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.
Ken Follett