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" After a while, you get tired of being the official Scot and defending everything Scottish. "

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" I will say that anyone who supports Scottish independence should go to Athens. Because nothing works. It is a disaster. It is a ruined, dirty place where people do not have money or future prospects. The day one after independence, Scotland would be worse. "

" Sport seems to be much more important to people than politics. "

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" The most interesting legal philosophy is German, so naturally I went to Germany, particularly to Berlin, quite a bit. "

" A lot of crime writing suffers from treading water. I feel an obligation to move the character on and not repeat myself. I try to fit him into a different period and a different agenda. That way, you learn slightly more about his personal history in the tradition of the unreliable narrator. It makes it more challenging to write. "

" There's something weird about the Scots. We are a troubled, slightly tortured race - the sense of the respectable outward character and, inside, the turmoil of something darker. "

" I used to play quite a good lead guitar, R&B style. Clapton and BB King are heroes. "

" I don't think any of us know how we would react until we were put in a situation where we have to do something bad or do something good. I think I'd like to believe I'd act like a decent human being, but I'm realistic to know I don't know. "

" The fascination for me writing about crime in Berlin was the idea that there was this much bigger crime taking place in the background, a fantastically epochal moment in history which is just going on. That just sort of makes the whole thing have a greater resonance. "

" Publishers just want you to write the same book over and over again. But why would I want to do that? It would be like putting on a threadbare dressing-gown day after day. "

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" My parents had never been to Germany. But I knew what I didn't want to write about, and I didn't want to write about Edinburgh. A lot of writers find Edinburgh fascinating, but I never did. As a matter of fact, I couldn't wait to get away from it. "

" I love sitting at my desk and facing a quiet day with a pen in my hand, and putting myself into a story. It's kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, to absent myself from real life and make up stories is strange, but I started doing this when I was ten years old. It was all I wanted to do. "

" When I feel I'm repeating myself, I'll probably pack it in. "

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" There's a great tradition among the English of writing about Berlin. It's kind of a state of mind, almost. That even translates in terms of music. A lot of people go to Berlin with the idea that it's a state of mind. "

" I prefer to write books for children instead of reading them. But I do strongly believe in childhood and in respecting childhood innocence. I don't like books for children that deal with adult themes. "

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" Scotland is the only case in the world where the poor part of a territory wants to separate from the rich part. If independence came, one option is to keep the pound as its currency, so that all economic decisions will continue to be taken by the Bank of England. "

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" All nationalism is based on racism and hate. I'm Scottish; I was born in Scotland, as my parents, as my grandparents. "

" History asks us to imagine ourselves in a period, but it's a very different situation when you're in that period and faced with those situations. "