I write longer sentences than most of the others, maybe because I probably like Henry James more than they do.

To do magic, to do great magic, he has to know himself as a piece of the universe.A piece of the universe?A little piece that has all the rest of it in it. Everything outside of him is also inside of him.

Each new book is a tremendous challenge.

My first real breakthrough collided with the last months of Callaghan’s Labour government, which had every intention of enjoying my success as much as I did.

Nobody is surprised that women writers accurately represent male characters over and over again, no doubt because everybody knows that women understand men much better than vice-versa.

Fear and I were old buddies, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

Nobody can protect anybody else from vileness. Or from pain. All you can do is not let it break you in half and keep on going until you get to the other side.

The world is full of ghosts, and some of them are still people.

I believe I encountered death, which was a bit too much for a seven-year-old.

What was the worst thing you’ve ever done? I won‘t tell you that, but I’ll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me…the most dreadful thing.

Dick Dart emerged from the ether during a flight from New York with my wife and children to Puerto Rico.

If I planned everything out in advance, I’d expire of boredom.

Intellectual labor is a common technique for the avoidance of thinking.

When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.

As soon as I started writing Julia, by which I mean while writing its first sentence, I felt a sudden, reassuring charge of excitement. I knew it was going to work.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

I instantly chucked my academic ambitions and began writing fiction full-time.

An average working day begins at 8 or 9 am, includes an hour for lunch, and ends at 5 or 6 pm.

On gym days, I don’t get to my desk until 4 in the afternoon, and everything except bedtime and the appointment with the liquid narcotic is pushed back a bit.

However, I think I managed to reach a new level with Koko, and I will always be grateful for the experience.

I had a connoisseur‘s… appreciation of fear.

Sometimes it is right to fear the dark.