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" I took the first James Kelman novel, 'The Bus Conductor Hines', home to my dad. I thought, 'My dad will like this; it's written in Scots.' But my dad said: 'I can't read that.' He was reading James Bond and John le Carre. That was part of what attracted me to crime - the idea of getting a wide audience. "

Ian Rankin

Bond

Crime

Reading

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" Writers always think their greatest work is just ahead of them. "

" My father worked in a grocery store. When the grocery chain went into administration, he eventually got a job in the naval dockyard in an office preparing the charts for the boats and the submarines before they headed out. "

" The most difficult part of any crime novel is the plotting. It all begins simply enough, but soon you're dealing with a multitude of linked characters, strands, themes and red herrings - and you need to try to control these unruly elements and weave them into a pattern. "

" I grew up in a family that was working-class, which taught me to be careful with money. "

" I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books. "

" I'm often asked how I write books, but I don't think my approach is suitable for everyone. If I walked into a creative writing class, all I could say to them was 'I tend to make it up as I go along.' I'm not sure that's brilliant advice. "

" I don't hang out with cops. "

" My parents were working class and didn't have much money, so holidays tended to be two weeks in a caravan at St. Andrews or a B&B in Blackpool. "

" My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on, and was beginning to think I'd have to give up the dream of being a full-time writer. "

" The great thing about America is I always come back with more books and more tip-offs of who to read. It's a country in love with crime fiction. "

" You need a great idea, but then you've got to carry it through. If you get it right, you're going to be a critical success. But not everyone who works hard gets it right, or has the success they deserve: there's an element of luck. "

" My mother worked in a school canteen - then worked in the canteen of a chicken factory. Every Friday, the pay packet money would be allocated to cover bills. "

" At all times, think like a writer, and keep those antennae twitching - that way, you pick up new ideas. "

" People aren't coming to me looking for political essays or polemic - they're looking for a rattling good story. "

" Being working class, my parents thought, 'Ian's going to uni, the first in the family,' and I'd do dentistry or accountancy. I was going to do accountancy; then I got a C in Economics and thought, 'Why am I doing this?' The only thing I was interested in was books and literature. "

" In 1991, I won the Chandler Fulbright Prize, which came with $20,000 and the stipulation of spending six months in the U.S. "

" I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread - Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks. "

" I go to Canada at least every two years. "

" I dunno whether it was to do with my parents - we were working-class - but it was important to me to be self-sufficient. "

Ian Rankin

Self-Sufficient

Parents

" Why does any novelist keep writing long after they've made money? Because they've failed to write the perfect novel. "

" Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction. "

" In real life, writers tend to be quite boring, but in our books, we're having exciting adventures all the time. "

" I still think most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up. We're still playing imaginary games, with our imaginary friends. "

Ian Rankin

Games

Think

" No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking like hell that you've got nothing new to say. "

" I wrote 'Knots and Crosses,' the first of the Rebus books, not even realising that I was writing crime fiction. "

" I think writers have to be proactive: they've got to use new technology and social media. Yes, it's hard to get noticed by traditional publishers, but there's a great deal of opportunity out there if you've got the right story. "

" I am, of course, a frustrated rock star - I'd much rather be a rock star than a writer. Or own a record shop. Still, it's not a bad life, is it? You just sit at a computer and make stuff up. "

" I've always written. At the age of six or seven, I would get sheets of A4 paper and fold them in half, cut the edges to make a little eight-page booklet, break it up into squares and put in little stick men with little speech bubbles, and I'd have a spy story, a space story and a football story. "

" I wanted to be able to support myself without begging for handouts from the state. All of the writers I knew when I was a student were all getting grants from the Scottish Arts Council. "

" I'm not Rebus. We're not the same. I don't even think he'd like me if we met. He'd think I was a wishy-washy liberal. "

Ian Rankin

Liberal