Ian Rankin Quotes

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.

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

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.

It seemed to him a very Edinburgh thing. Welcoming, but not very.

Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction.

I wrote my first short story for a competition and won second prize. Another competition came up and I won first prize. The first story was published in a newspaper. The second went out on radio.

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.

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.

What happens to sanity when you chain it to a wall?

This man had something to hide, some shame in his past, and those with a past can always be bought.

The man nodded and brought a bottle from the glass-fronted fridge,

My father was a slave to capitalist ideology. He didn't know what he was doing.""You mean you went to an expensive school?

...trapped in limbo, believing in a lack of belief, but not necessarily lacking the belief to believe.

And little girls went to charm schools. Now you've all got degrees from the University of Sarcasm.

Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies.