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" Ford Maddox Ford's 'The Good Soldier' is my favourite novel. I first read it in the 1950s and have read it about 20 times since. It's possibly the best-constructed book in the English language. "

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" 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' began differently from any previous book I'd written. It actually derives from a story a friend - the novel's dedicatee, Patrick Maher - told me. "

Ruth Rendell

Book

Story

" It's absolutely essential to my life. I don't know what I would do if I didn't write. "

" I think about death every day - what it would be like, why it would happen to me. It would be humiliating to be afraid. "

" I am curious about people. I want to know their secrets... because I am the last person to whom I would tell a secret; people tell me their secrets. "

" We, people, are so very, very complicated that no matter how well drawn a fictional character is, they can't get anywhere near as complex as a real person. "

" Reading is becoming a kind of specialist activity, and that strikes terror into the heart of people who love reading. "

" I don't like the way young people write and talk about the old. I don't like their attitude, which, if they weren't young and therefore bright and vibrant, would be called outdated. "

" I think I must be the only grandmother in the world who was given an iPod by her grandsons. It has changed my life - I'd be lost without it. "

" I always know when a novel is going to be a Barbara Vine one. In fact I believe that if I weren't to write it as Barbara Vine, I wouldn't be able to write it at all. "

" I do think that being a sort of celebrity and being well off does give me some responsibility. I think that people who make a lot of money - and I do - should certainly give a considerable amount of it away. "

Ruth Rendell

Money

Think

" Why do we have to have violence, torture, brutality in crime dramas every time we turn on television? Any new crime drama is going to have, sooner or later, a lot of torture and nasty things that make people flinch. Lots of young people I know shrink and flinch from that kind of thing on television, so I think showing it is a mistake. "

" I'm a very rigorous person. I like to take exercise. People get mired in old age, they get bent and twisted, but I can stop that. "

" People do sometimes ask me some really idiotic questions: 'Is your husband afraid of you putting arsenic in his food?' I replied that I have never written a book about poison, ever. "

" The things I write about are completely removed from my own life, but people want to know the characters better. "

" I'm not much of an eater. "

Ruth Rendell

Much

Eater

" I've never really been satisfied with a book. I always want it to be better. "

" I don't exorcise anything with my writing. I'm sure people do, but I don't. "

" I have a Kindle, but I don't like it very much. I like a book. "

Ruth Rendell

Book

Kindle

" I always write about subjects which attract me because if I didn't, it would be awful, a failure. "

Ruth Rendell

Always

Attract

" I don't feel that I wanted to spend my whole writing life - which is my life - writing detective stories. "

" I have a soft spot for charities that help children. "

" It looks as if the NHS will gradually fade away, and we shall go back to a great deal of private medicine. "

" I have never been a foodie and am seldom very hungry. "

Ruth Rendell

Seldom

Been

" What I mind in modern society very much is the awful lack of grammar. "

" I don't find writing easy. That is because I do take great care; I rewrite a lot. "

" I never carry a notebook while walking around London. I just pick those things up. I'm very good at quizzes. "

" Everybody wants their fame. They long for it, and I think they don't much care how they get it - to attract attention to themselves. "

" As soon as I know it's about technological things or spies, I lose interest. I want to know what goes on in people's minds. "

" I - I love being told by people that they enjoy my books, and I think that's really very nice. "

" People tell me the most extraordinary things. I've noticed it for years. Perhaps they know I won't be shocked. Or judgmental. "