It's always sad if anybody you know has a personal problem.

British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.

The third guy was different. He was what you got when you ate squirrels for four generations. Smarter than a rat and tougher than a goat, and jumpier than either one.

I just felt from personal observation that there is nothing more dislocated or alienated than a lifelong military person trying to cope in civilian life. It's like two completely separate planets.

This was like July 13th, 1943, the pivotal day of the Battle of the Kursk. We were like Alexander Vasilevsky, the Soviet general. If we attacked now, this minute, we had to keep on and on attacking until the enemy was run off his feet and the war was won. If we bogged down or paused for breath even for a second, we would be overrun again.

He had fallen out of the ugly tree, and hit every branch.

You see something scary, you should stand up and step toward it, not away from it. Instinctively, reflexively, in a raging fury.