If you went for a job interview in a Glasgow law firm, they used to ask you what school you went to. And that was a way of finding out what religion you were.

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

To have a very strong opinion all the time is corrosive to a person's intellect. It becomes your default position.

I think graphic novels are closer to prose than film, which is a really different form.

I'd read so much right-wing crime fiction where they find the evidence and shoot the bad guy - I thought there must be another approach.

Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve.

I think the negative traits are what makes us love other human beings, the foibles and the flaws.

None of us know what is going to sell or what people want to read.

In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.

There's a real emphasis on being witty in Scotland, even in crime novels.

I have two children. They are more fun than anything in the world, and it's more immediate fun than the hard slog of writing.

Even if life has no purpose, it doesn’t mean that yours shouldn’t have one either. The universe will not care either way.

That we cannot rise equal to situations when we are in them — that is the tragedy of life.

Not to be mad is another form of madness

A refined soul is distressed to know that someone owes it thanks; a crude soul, to know that it owes someone thanks.

The opportunities that everyone cannot see are the real opportunities.

I do think laughter is the most important thing, and being able to see the funny side of nearly anything is a crucial, crucial thing.

If a servant strives to please his master and studies and takes pains to do it, I believe there are but few masters who would use such a servant cruelly.

The secret of life does not lie in its chemical basis . . . Life succeeds precisely because it evades chemical imperatives.

I am one of the few men honest enough to say they do not understand women.

How could you not be hopeful if you've got a tree around?