I just got an honorary degree from Glasgow University, and I had to wear around very painful shoes so that I didn't laugh all the way through the ceremony because I felt like an outlaw.

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

I'm always represented as a bit of a class warrior - a bit Down With Men and Down With Middle-Class People. Whereas I'm actually very fond of men and am middle-class. I even went to boarding school in Perthshire.

I think the negative traits are what makes us love other human beings, the foibles and the flaws.

To have a very strong opinion all the time is corrosive to a person's intellect. It becomes your default position.

I respond very well to rules. If there are certain parameters it's much easier to do something really good. Especially when readers know what those are. They know what to expect and then you have to wrong-foot them. That is the trick of crime fiction. And readers come to crime and graphic novels wanting to be entertained, or disgusted.

Most of the people who write to me are really clever, really engaged. They just want to say that they have read my book and liked it.