What is a writer of fiction but a liar with a licence?

Somehow the anticipation of pain can be even more troubling, more a misery than the pain itself.

Sometimes survival is the worst alternative there is

Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul.

If you want something you can have it, but you have to do some work. It's the ethic my mother brought me up with.

The process of writing is a little like madness, a kind of possession not altogether benign.

I don't think I've ever had a mentor. The closest thing is my friend Christopher Fowler, another writer. Chris kept me sane for a long time before I made it.