Quotes from Ian Rankin

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

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

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

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 would have loved to have been a rock n' roll star. But none of us was musical, and none of us had any instruments.

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.

A lot of writers, especially crime writers, have an image that we think we're trying to keep up with. You've got to be seen as dark and slightly dangerous. But I'm not like that and I've realised that I don't need to put that on. People will buy the books whether they see a photo of you dressed in black or not.

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

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.

When I'm writing, I won't know whodunnit until maybe two thirds of the way through. Until then, I know as little as my detective. I just make it up as I go along. It's nerve-wracking, actually. You'll be half through and not know your conclusion. You worry one of these days the ending won't come. I'll be left with only two-thirds of a novel.

I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.'

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

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.

From this height the sleeping city seems like a child's construction, a model which has refused to be constrained by imagination. The volcanic plug might be black Plasticine, the castle balanced solidly atop it a skewed rendition of crenellated building bricks. The orange street lamps are crumpled toffee-wrappers glued to lollipop sticks.

This was the winter of 2008/9. Work was ongoing to reinstate a tram system in the city. A lot of people couldn't see the point of trams and many more disliked the disruption. Streets were closed off. There was almost a sense of 'apartheid' as the roadworks made it difficult to move from New Town to Old Town and vice versa. Added to which, the weather was fairly grim. And the banks looked ready to implode.

It seemed to Rebus that the more expensive something was, the less of it there always seemed to be: tiny little hi-fi systems, watches without numbers, the translucent Dior ankle-socks on Michael's feet.

despite rumors to the contrary, you're on the side of the angels. (...) Whether you like it or not.

Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies.

Strangulation. It was a fearful way to go, wrestling, kicking your way towards oblivion, panic, the fretful sucking for air, and the killer behind you most likely, so that you faced the fear of something totally anonymous, a death without knowledge of who or why. Rebus had been taught methods of killing in the SAS. He knew what it felt like to have the garotte tighten on your neck, trusting to the opponent's prevailing sanity. A fearful way to go.

He's as smooth as a fresh-laid turd and gives off the same smell.

POETS Day, remember! Fox smiled to himself: Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday. It was all the invitation he needed.

That guy should be in porn films." Barclay frowned. "Why's that then, Allan?" Ward looked at him. "Tell me, Tam, when did you last see a bigger prick?

Groynes divided the mostly sandy beach into neat compartments.