We need to create the institutions that will support the society we want to live in. The only answer is collective action. Nick Harkaway More Quotes by Nick Harkaway More Quotes From Nick Harkaway In abandoning the understanding that things - services, goods, wars, and houses - have costs, we risk becoming infantilised, incapable of making decisions about government or finance, and perhaps above all about the environment, the wellbeing of the planet upon which we depend and which our children will inherit from us. Nick Harkaway will finance government children The market, as we're all painfully aware in the aftermath of the banking crisis, can be an idiot. It has no perception of right or wrong, or even sensible or insane. It sees profit. Nick Harkaway wrong idiot crisis perception Revolutions come in two stages: the bit where everything gets smashed and the bit where you have to build it again. The first is great fun; the second is so very hard. Nick Harkaway everything great you fun 'Tigerman' was born in the front seat of a Hilux SUV on the road north out of Chiang Mai. Nick Harkaway seat road out born Being a parent is weird. It changes people in subtle and unsubtle ways. In my case, it awoke a kind of manic sentinel in my brain. Anything in the house that might be a threat to the kids or to my wife gets terminated - food, sharp edges, poor wiring. Nick Harkaway wife brain food people My scientific qualifications are relatively scant. I like science. I try really hard to educate myself about it, but in the end, if something has to go 'boom,' and it would probably only go 'fwoosh,' I am relatively unconcerned about that, which is a sin, but not, I think, a grave one. Nick Harkaway i-am myself think science If you ask who I aspire to, well, if a single line of mine was as funny as P. G. Wodehouse can be, that would be great. Nick Harkaway great you single funny I wanted a pseudonym partly because I'm quite shy and private. I know that sounds ludicrous, but if I should be lucky enough to make a hit, I wanted to be able to shrug off the mantel of Nick Harkaway when I got home. Nick Harkaway know shy enough home I read my father's books growing up. I thought then and I still think now that his writing is wonderful. It delights and infuriates me in equal measure that he's still that good. Nick Harkaway good think me father The great thing is to have been surrounded by stories all my life. Nick Harkaway surrounded my-life great life I'm a novelist: I spend a great part of my day pretending to myself that I'm in a different world, being a different person, faced with decisions I pretend I haven't created. Nick Harkaway day great myself world I do public appearances. I'm bluff, hearty, goofy. I wear loud clothes, and I read the funny bits. I occasionally get taken to task for one thing or another, and I acknowledge my fault, my flaw, my failure, and I move on. Nick Harkaway wear clothes failure funny Prize lists are out, and you're not on them? Nature of the world - means nothing. Prizes are a lottery. Nick Harkaway nothing you nature world I never engage negatively with reviewers. If someone says something that enrages me, I do what I do on stage. I make a joke about myself and move on. Sometimes people say things that are manifestly wrong or even apparently malicious. That's fine, too. It's a response. Nick Harkaway myself me sometimes people I know that when I talk to my parents and my friends, there's a strong feeling of the world out of control and damaged. Nick Harkaway parents feeling friends world I am the world's most appalling martial artist. I am so bad. I've studied jujitsu, kickboxing, t'ai chi. Once, I was sparring with someone, made a mistake, and managed to knock them down. I was so shocked that I dropped to my knees to see if they were all right, and then they knocked me out cold. From the floor. Nick Harkaway i-am me mistake world I think lots of boys sat down with 'The Three Musketeers' and felt it was a really long book, but then discovered that it's a really gripping swashbuckling story. Nick Harkaway down think long book There's a saying in the movie industry that if your movie is about what you actually think it's about, you're in big trouble. I think it's the same with books. Nick Harkaway your saying think you
