To be a classic, a novel should be original..

there must be a routine to life, a framework to hang life on. Routines were what kept you sane, gave you something to do at this moment and at that, ….

Maybe being married is talking to oneself with one's other self listening..

Ten thousand years of civilization shed in an instant when you put a woman behind the wheel of a car..

It's living - a broad spectrum of living - that teaches you how to live, not philosophy. Philosophy teaches you how to think..

I really do literally put myself into a character's shoes..

I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel sorry for my psychopaths, because I do..

we dislike those we've injured..

We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming even though when actually dreaming we feel all this may be real..

Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write..

London underground took me on a tour of all the hidden places, the disused shafts and staircases... that was very interesting..

We no more forget the faces of our enemies than of those we love..

I can't exist without books..

The trouble with psychology is that it doesn't take human nature into account..

the English, although partakers in the most variable and quixotic climate in the world, never become used to its vagaries, but comment upon them with….

The knives of jealousy are honed on details..

Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading..

To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs..

I think to be driven to want to kill must be such a terrible burden..

Nobody really lives in the present..

I get a lot of letters from people. They say "I want to be a writer. What should I do?" I tell them to stop writing to me and to get on with it..