In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.

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.

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.

Journalism is a Darwinian process.

Sometimes it might be kinder to kill a man, than to take his dreams from him.

What an absurdity to go and bury oneself in South America, where they are always having revolutions.

The bomber will always get through. The only defense is in offense, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly that the enemy if you want to save yourselves.

The minute more than two people know a secret, it is no longer a secret.

Exaggeration is a branch of lying.

I think I have an obligation to be kind to people in general, otherwise I'll feel crappy about myself.

Honest talk about the deficit is risky. Voters are more enthusiastic about the abstract notion of deficit reduction than about the painful details of accomplishing it.

When once the mind has raised itself to grasp and to delight in excellence, those who love most will be found to love most wisely.

Companies don't have ideas; only people do. And what motivates people are the bonds and loyalty and trust they develop between each other. What matters is the mortar, not just the bricks.

You're the father of the person who is my life.