I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.

It wasn't that [he] believed in religion, or a God, or an afterlife. He just knew it was impossible to feel this much love and for it to end.

Sylvia loved secrets and even if she didn't have any secrets she made sure that you thought she did. Amelia had no secrets, Amelia knew nothing. When she grew up she planned to know everything and to keep it all a secret.

When you chopped logs with the ax and they split open they smelled beautiful, like Christmas. But when you split someone's head open it smelled like abattoir and quite overpowered the scent of the wild lilacs you'd cut and brought into the house only this morning, which was already another life.

No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.

I've always loved mysteries, the something there that you didn't know, and with 'Case Histories' I just decide to make that more up-front.

Certainly I had a really terrible time with 'Emotionally Weird.' When I finished it, I thought, 'I can't write any more.