I had never liked, even feared a little, this wild reach of marsh and mud flats where everything seemed turned away from the land, looking off desperately toward the horizon as if in mute search for a sign of rescue.

Doing what you do well is death. Your duty is to keep trying to do things that you don't do well, in the hope of learning.

Most crime fiction, no matter how 'hard-boiled' or bloodily forensic, is essentially sentimental, for most crime writers are disappointed romantics.

In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.

I dont know if there is a personal identity. We all imagine that we are absolute individuals. But when we begin to look for where this individuality resides, its very difficult to find.

With the crime novels, its delightful to have protagonists I can revisit in book after book. Its like having a fictitious family.

To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must first fall in love there.