Obviously I don't have whatever it is you need to be a successful writer.

Drafting is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.The closer you get to the end, the more you start to worry about the beginning.

...I don't have concrete plans for the future. I just think of success and keep a successful attitude. Success is 99 percent preparation. If you set yourself up for winning, rarely will you fail.

There are people who can achieve huge success in life, while adding a bit of fun and a splash of colour to this increasingly grey world.

I think the police are a major part of the glue that holds civilised life together. They're not highly paid.

Brighton is a beautiful seaside city, but it's got a dark underbelly.

I travel abroad constantly on book promotion and research, and the Internet is invaluable to me for accessing U.K. news in places such as America, which most of the time hasn't heard of England.

The biggest qualification to be a good police officer is to have a high degree of emotional intelligence.

Death is just nature's way of making room for the less experienced.

I think that Brighton, for a crime writer, is almost like a character.

If you talk to any cop, however hardened, and say, "Has anything that's ever bothered you", they'll tell you about the death of a child that they had to deal with.

Fire can destroy everything, but it is also the most important creative force.

I learned that true forgiveness includes total self-acceptance. And out of acceptance wounds are healed and happiness is possible again.

Don't let expertise fool you into seeing false boundaries or underestimating those with wild dreams.

The students always, always surprise me.

People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them.

The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.

I don't believe in magic, either.

You know, you have to have some inner philosophy to deal with adversity.

In government and out, there are vast realms of the bureaucracy dedicated to seeking more information, in perpetuity if need be, in order to avoid taking action.

Why is America the last best hope of Earth? What if it's Liechtenstein? Or, worse, Canada?