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

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

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?

In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.

If you went for a job interview in a Glasgow law firm, they used to ask you what school you went to. And that was a way of finding out what religion you were.

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

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