The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

- Ned Beauman

I hate going back over what I've written. It makes me feel physically sick.

- Ned Beauman

I'm reasonably good at talking onstage, but actually holding court in a pub is all to do with power dynamics which I don't think has anything to do w…

- Ned Beauman

There's never a bad time to put earplugs in. They're the kind of thing you can reject as a bit lame, but somebody told me to do start wearing earplug…

- Ned Beauman

Until I was 16, I read nothing but science fiction. I loved William Gibson and I still do. But my favourite book when I was growing up, for a long ti…

- Ned Beauman

You couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate at least something. Indeed, perhaps you couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate almost ev…

- Ned Beauman

Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.

- Ned Beauman

I always save a huge book for a flight, because then you read it at both airports and on the plane and by the time you get home you're a quarter of t…

- Ned Beauman

I don't have a day job, so I read any time of day.

- Ned Beauman