A condensed Shakespeare with all of the dull parts removed, leaving only the great moments of drama: ghosts, and bloodied daggers, and dying kings.
But he was wounded, and tired, and winter was still upon him.
The only person who needs to know about failure is yourself.
If you work at home, you're always on call in a way.
I find that I take a great deal of pleasure knowing I get up people's noses to some degree.
What is good for you creatively is usually bad commercially. You thrive financially by sticking to a series and not fiddling about too much. You do yourself harm by moving away from the series and the genre. By trying things not based in that particu...
There is sometimes a feeling in crime fiction that good writing gets in the way of story. I have never felt that way. All you have is language. Why write beneath yourself? It's an act of respect for the reader as much as yourself.
There is a very conservative element of crime writers that don't recognise what I do is crime fiction.
I've been fascinated by the idea that evil is the absence of empathy.
As I get older I tend to rail against the world more and more.
I think people are confusing the right to write with the right to be published.
Anyone who wants bookstores to survive is portrayed as a Luddite who goes around smashing up Kindles.
You have to understand that only the very worst end up here: the ones whose anger made them kill, and who felt no sorrow or guilt after the act; those so obsessed with themselves that they turned their backs on the sufferings of others, and left them...
I dream dark dreams. I dream of a figure moving through the forest, of children flying from his path, of young women crying at his coming. I dream of snow and ice, of bare branches and moon-cast shadows. I dream of dancers floating in the air, steppi...
Writers are magpies by nature, always collecting shiny things, storing them away and looking for connections of things.
I feel that I'll be buried in Ireland and don't think I'll ever live in the U.S. I'm not comfortable with many aspects of U.S. society - especially the justice system.