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

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" The old detective story that's got a really complicated motive doesn't apply to mine. "

" It doesn't matter what kind of book you write - you ought to write it well and with some kind of style and elegance. "

" I don't know what I would do if I didn't write. "

" 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 don't expect the sun to be always shining, or even want that to happen. "

" I have an idea, and I have a perpetrator, and I write the book along those lines, and when I get to the last chapter, I change the perpetrator so that if I can deceive myself, I can deceive the reader. "

" I do write about obsession, but I don't think I have an obsession for writing. I'm not a compulsive writer. I like to watch obsession in other people, watch the way it makes them behave. "

" I don't want to be a fusty old lady writer. "

" People always tell me my books are so dark; I don't think they're particularly dark. I'm not like that. I'm quite a cheerful soul. "

" I don't care for people who are given peerages who have paid for them. I think it happens, and I don't like that. "

" Crimes are more often committed out of fear than wickedness. People live frightened, desperate lives. "

" I always know what I'm going to write before I sit down. "

" I don't have any dark desires. And I think most people don't. A few have dark desires and don't sublimate them. "

" The knives of jealousy are honed on details. "

" My favourite book - 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford, which I have read about 20 times - is different from my favourite author, who is Iris Murdoch. I find her books exciting and unputdownable. Her characters are so carefully studied and in-depth; I love that. "

" 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 I don't like their attitude, which, if they weren't young and therefore bright and vibrant, would be called outdated.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 have a soft spot for charities that help children. "

" The more you pander to what is, presumably, the taste of young people, the more you corrupt. "

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

" Violence is very much with us, and we like to see it. I doubt if you can change that, and I'm not sure you should want to. I have occasionally been very upset by something I was writing, but it's quite rare: I keep my writing very separate from my life. "

" I don't like slapdash careless prose, and if I saw myself doing it, I would give up writing altogether. "

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

" Hugh Grant will always be associated with his scandal, and so will Max Mosley. "

" You don't knock television, even if you don't always like what they make of your work. It makes all the difference between being an also-ran writer and very famous. "

" 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 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. "

" People are still being put into geriatric wards when they don't need it. They need treatment, not just being put into bed and fed. "

" I am neurotic, but I live with it. I think most people are, anyway. "

" I think that people who make a lot of money - and I do - should certainly give a considerable amount of it away. "

" 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. "