Because I write a book a year, I always want to do one other project every year that's stimulating in a different way. It means you can be working but not using up your prose juice, you know?

I hate it when I'm reading a comic, and the dialogue looks like stickers stuck on top to explain what's going on. For me the best is when your eye goes in a certain point and moves through the composition and then springs out on the dialogue, or gets confused in the image and then goes to the dialogue for an explanation.

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

None of us know what is going to sell or what people want to read.

I grew up in London under Thatcher and that really was disgusting. A feeding frenzy.

Usually when I'm trying to establish character, I try and find out where they live.

A man who thinks he has a higher purpose can do terrible things, even to those he professes to love.