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" Old women especially are invisible. I have been to parties where no one knows who I am, so I am ignored until I introduce myself to someone picked at random. Immediately, word gets round, and I am surrounded by people who tell me they are my biggest fans. "

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" 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. "

Ruth Rendell

Teacher

School

She

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

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

Ruth Rendell

Seem

Magic

" I get up just before six and come downstairs, put food out for the cats, and open the cat flap. Then I work out for 35 or 40 minutes - I have a very large bathroom with an elliptical cross-trainer and a bicycle. "

" 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. "

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

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

" I don't make any notes, but I do know where to find things. Suppose I need to know where Wexford first talked about his love of the countryside or where he quotes Larkin or what was the beginning of his hatred of racism or where he first encountered domestic violence; I would be able to find it straight away. "

" 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. "

" Women's rights are more important than their ethnic rights. "

" Suspense is my thing. I think I am able to make people want to keep turning pages. They want to know what happens. So I can do that. "

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

" I don't think there is a fictional character who resembles me because fictional characters are not real! "

Ruth Rendell

Character

Who

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

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

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

" 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 think it says something that I have never had an obscene letter. A young man once attempted one, but it was so totally illiterate and hopeless that it made me laugh. "

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

Ruth Rendell

Live

Fear

" 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 have had quite a lot of prizes, but I don't think it makes any difference to the ease or difficulty to the writing process. "

" My mother had multiple sclerosis. "

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

" 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 agree with what Mark Twain said - we're all mad at night. "

" I'm concerned with the lost, the lonely, the shy. I think shyness is in some ways more widespread now than formerly. I used to be shy myself. Of course, you can't be me now and remain shy, but I remember very well what it felt like. "

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

Ruth Rendell

Seldom

Been

" I don't mind being distracted. "