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All Quotes by author - Sophie Hannah

" Agatha Christie never wrote books that just started with a dead body, and a 'Let's find out who the murderer is', which is kind of mysterious but not that mysterious. She always started with, 'How can this thing be happening; isn't it strange?' "

" Agatha Christie's writing is incredibly skillful because her books are incredibly intellectually puzzling and challenging. "

" All through childhood, I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming. "

" A lot of women feel like they should be enjoying motherhood, they should be fulfilled and shouldn't be thinking, 'I wish I didn't have to do this.' "

" Cambridge is heaven, I am convinced it is the nicest place in the world to live. As you walk round, most people look incredibly bright, as if they are probably off to win a Nobel prize. "

" Crime fiction is a way of satisfying that nosy need to know. "

" Everything is personal - the poems and the crime novels. I have never been involved in any murders, but there are strong autobiographical elements in each. "

" For me, a big part of writing psychological thrillers is choosing crimes committed for motives which would only apply to a particular person in a particular situation; a unique, one-off motive that is born out of someone's particular range of psychological afflictions. "

" I always notice the dysfunctional dynamic of human relationships because most places where you encounter it, people are trying to pretend it isn't happening. "

" I am actually incredibly contented and jolly. But, and I have no idea why this is, I have a really strong empathy with all kinds of warped and destructive modes of thinking. I don't know why, but those things co-exist. "

" I am a fellow commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. My husband used to be a lecturer at Leeds University, and we lived in Yorkshire for 11 years. When he gave up his job, we realised we could live wherever we liked. "

" I am trying to write novels for properly clever people, but I also want them to be proper novels that also stick in a person's mind and have an atmosphere about them. "

" If we knew more about psychology, we would be better equipped to deal with other people's psychological damage which they might project onto us. "

" If you ask people if they enjoy crime novels, they'll say, 'Oh, my guilty pleasure is...' then name a really brilliant crime writer. "

" I know a lot of crime writers feel very underrated, like they're not taken seriously, and they want to be just thought of as writers rather than ghettoised as crime writers, but I love being thought of firmly as a crime writer. "

" I love the house we're in, but at the same time, I'm hooked on the romance of house-hunting. "

" I'm not cut out to lug babies around! "

" I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?' "

" In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11. "

" I never write about CIA conspiracies or the FBI or mafia or anything like that because I just don't understand that world. But I think I do understand individual human harmfulness. "

" In West Yorkshire, I'd have to drive three quarters of an hour to go shopping. "

" I've got lots of favourite authors, but I would say Nicci French because I look more forward to reading her next new book than any other author. "

" I want my books to explore motives which make people think, 'Wow! Imagine the psychological state you'd have to be in for that to be your motive!' Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy - they're rational reasons for committing murder. "

" I was working as a secretary in Manchester and thought I would always do that. Then I got this letter offering me a two-year fellowship where I could write; they would pay me a salary and give me a flat to live in. It was heaven. "

" Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer. "

" Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention. "

" My characters all have issues, but I don't see that as weird or abnormal because I think in real life there are very few bland, normal people. "

" My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing, and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak. "

" My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In The Library.' "

" My favourite Friday treat is to drive out of the centre of Cambridge, where we live, and go for a swim at the health club I've just joined out in the countryside at Quy. It's a lovely pool, inside a converted barn. Usually it's just me and a couple of other swimmers there. "

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