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" 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. "

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" I'm very fond of Tennessee Williams' plays, and when my husband and I went to New Orleans in the late 1970s, we saw 'A Street Car Named Desire.' "

Ruth Rendell

Desire

Street

Car

" I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?' "

" I don't want to marry anybody, but I certainly wouldn't want to marry a bad novelist. "

" I write every morning. From about a quarter to nine to a quarter to one. It might be nine to one, or 8:30 to 12:30. "

" I was imbued from a very early age with a sense of doom. "

" I love memory sticks. They seem to me to be magic. "

Ruth Rendell

Seem

Magic

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

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

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

" I never was religious, really, but I'm very interested in religion. "

" 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. "

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

" I used to get an awful lot of letters, and they have almost all gone. I used to answer nearly all of them. "

" I wouldn't be young again even if it were possible, but I am not going to pretend that growing old is all sweetness and light. "

" 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. "

" Many people have a profession or a job - most people do, I should think. And they do it. And that's what I did. "

" Some women lose their husbands, and their worlds change because their financial circumstances change. All I have in common with them is a grief. "

" I was a child, and in 1942, I was evacuated to the Cotswolds with my mother, who was a teacher - she went with her school. I lived in one house in the village, and my mother was in the vicarage. "

" The treatment of patients with contaminated blood has been described as one of the most tragic episodes in the history of the NHS. "

" People want to marry me for companionship. No thanks! I've got my cats for that! "

" I don't think the world is a particularly pleasant place. "

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

" I really do literally put myself into a character's shoes. "

" Reading taught me how to write. "

" I enjoy moving. I like to be in a new place. Settling down doesn't appeal to me much. I like the whole business of it. And I love the first night in the new place. "

" I call myself an agnostic. I'm open to change. I'm the same sort of person, although much less aggressive, as Richard Dawkins. "

" I'm a very bad Christian, but I am a Christian. I think that all women, unless they are absolutely asleep, must be feminists up to a point. And socialist, well yes, of course, it's not a fashionable word, but I am very much of the Left. "

" I really am not affected by the tragic aspects of my books. "

Ruth Rendell

Really

Books

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