At all times, think like a writer, and keep those antennae twitching - that way, you pick up new ideas.

A good album should be more than the sum of its parts.

Rebus was eating breakfast in the canteen and wishing there was more caffeine in the coffee, or more coffee in the coffee come to that.

You wouldn't think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we'll do it one day. That's how negligent we are.

I still think most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up. We're still playing imaginary games, with our imaginary friends.

No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking like hell that you've got nothing new to say.

It was the laughter of birthdays, of money found in an old pocket.

[About a tiresome colleague]: He could bore for Scotland.

War created bizarre allies, while peace itself could be divisive.

I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books.

I am, of course, a frustrated rock star - I'd much rather be a rock star than a writer. Or own a record shop. Still, it's not a bad life, is it? You just sit at a computer and make stuff up.

When he put his arms around me, and held me to his chest, everything in me settled. When he spoke into my ear, it all came loose again, as if his words evaporated the gravity of my mind.

The only pathway to your destruction is your ignorance.

Time and need compels to trust strangers even for a specific time

I guess getting older has its benefits, one of them being perspective.

If you're still in a bar when the lights go on, you are a loser.

I don't accept the argument of people like David Horowitz that the government should impose some sort of predetermined political balance on academic research.

Luck? Luck is hard work - and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.

Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.

You have eaten a meal dangerously seasoned. [You have laid up a grief in store for yourself.]

The past seems to infuse into the present, and in the brown, wringled faces of the old people one sees the presence of the past.