I don't mean to be insolent. I'm truthful. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts. For instance, you have bad breath, Lieutenant. I can smell it from here. It must offend a lot of people. That's the truth. But how many people have told you that? Instead, they either lie or try to avoid your company.

When you get the ideas, that's a thrill; when you're writing the book and it's corning out well, that's a thrill; when you finish it and other people read it, that's a thrill. There are going to be reviews, of course; not everyone's going to love it. You feel sort of naked and vulnerable in a way. That's just a minor part of the process, really. If you can't take that part, you shouldn't be in the business. But there are so many joys to writing.

Family life was wonderful. The streets were bleak. The playgrounds were bleak. But home was always warm. My mother and father had a great relationship. I always felt 'safe' there.

He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went for the jugular. Active verbs that danced and raced on the page.

I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.

I have always had a sense that we are all pretty much alone in life, particularly in adolescence.

I don't mean to be insolent. I'm truthful. I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts. For instance, you have bad breath, Lieutenant. I can smell it from here. It must offend a lot of people. That's the truth. But how many people have told you that? Instead, they either lie or try to avoid your company.