I just took [my cancer diagnosis] as bad luck, basically. It did strike me almost immediately, my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought "ha, if I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, why me God? What have I done to deserve this?" and I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply treat it as bad luck and get on with it.

I'm an only child so am happy with my own company and I don't really get lonely.

Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.

I've always loved Scotland, and I'm not a huge fan of big cities, to be honest. I like them to dip into for a bit, but I'm not sure I would want to live in one again.

One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them.

I wouldn't like to be a character in one of my books!

I just come up with the stories and write them as well as I can. There's not really a great deal of strokey-beard thinking going on.