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" Sometimes fear is used as a way to control. "

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" I came from a working-class family, but I was supported by a grant system and had my fees paid, so I came out of Oxford with a debt of something like £200. "

" I'd like to be more spontaneous. "

" I won't be attempting to write Jane Austen-style prose - that would be suicidal. But I will attempt to bring the highest level of my own prose, and to make it sparkle. "

" I spent a lot of time at my grandparents in the school holidays, and the only books in the house were a copy of the Bible and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage.' I developed a taste for murder mysteries and then later discovered libraries, second-hand bookshops, and jumble sales. "

" I've never wanted to live in a ghetto or write in a ghetto. I want to write about a world that reflects the one most people live in. Gay people are just one aspect of that. "

" It seems to me that one of the things that happened with a lot of literary fiction in the 1980s and 1990s was that it became very concerned with the academy and less with how people live their lives. We got to a point where the crime novel stepped into the breach. It was also a time when the crime novel stopped being so metropolitan. "

" I was thinking things had changed: that the next generation of men weren't as institutionally misogynist as the previous were. And then, suddenly, the Internet came along and gave them a platform to voice their feelings anonymously. And boy, did the bile come out. "

" There is still a funny notion that women should not write violent fiction. "

" I think that crime is a good vehicle for looking at society in general because the nature of the crime novel means that you draw on a wide group of social possibilities. "

" I was always writing the books that I wanted to write, books that demanded to be written at the time. But, like most writers, you start off feeling your way. "

" I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience. "

" We weren't dirt poor, but there was no spare money kicking around. While it was very much understood that the way to a better life was through education, books were a luxury we couldn't afford. But when I was six, we actually moved opposite the central library, and that became my home from home. "

" Growing up in Fife, you were aware that there were these creatures called lesbians, but it was in the realms of complete freakishness. And I didn't feel like a freak. "

" On one hand, you've got 'decent' men, and on the other you've got neanderthal misogynist bawbags - and the middle ground is what's disappearing. "

" The contemporary crime novel is, at its best, a novel of character. That's where the suspense comes from. "

" One of the reasons we all still read Jane Austen is because her books are about universal things which still matter today - love, money, family. They haven't gone out of fashion, so it's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater to rework her in a contemporary style. "

" I think Jane Austen builds suspense well in a couple of places, but she squanders it, and she gets to the endgame too quickly. So I will be working on those things. "

" The condition of rage is one in which I find myself starting my day - once I see the news headlines. "

" The thing is that quite a few of my books have ended up as they are because of conversations I've had over the years with forensic scientists. "

" I said to Ruth Rendell, 'When you've written as many books as you have, it's easier.' She said, 'No dear, it gets harder'. "

" I have a vernacular house on the seaside in Northumberland and an Edwardian semi in south Manchester. They're both exactly as big as they need to be. I can't be doing with an ostentatious, big house - you can only be in one room at a time. "

" I am the despair of my accountant; I am the plastic bags of receipts. "

" I did want to be Joni Mitchell for quite a long time. "

" It was a bit unimaginable when I began that I'd ever get to 25 books. But it was also unimaginable how much crime-writing would have changed. "