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

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'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.

Journalism is a Darwinian process.

The difference between face-to-face conversation and any other medium of communication is simple: No distractions are permitted.

Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise.

The trouble with straw men is it only takes a single match to set them ablaze.

All I can do is share what I'm thinking - and learn from others.

Overcoming fear has nothing to do with abandoning common sense. We retain our common sense, but we lose that emotion that is fear.

I'm still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.

Our doctor would never really operate unless it was necessary. He was just that way. If he didn't need the money, he wouldn't lay a hand on you.

If I don't feel it, I can't play it.

This feeling of helplessness in us has arisen from our deliberate dismissal of God from our common affairs.

When a bunch of stuff is happening on set, you have to remember the grander purpose: you're telling a story, so you have to get to that moment, and that takes supreme focus.