Quotes from Val McDermid

I just think sometimes, they were kids once. They ran about the park kicking a football. They had things they wanted to be. Nobody dreams about being that guy there. Nobody sets out to be like him. And we keep coming up against folk that have got themselves completely fucked up.

He knew he could devastate her and drive her from him with a handful of well-chosen sentences. And part of him wanted to do just that. Part of him wanted to banish her and her presumptions from his life. He'd travel further and faster and lighter without her. Then an appalling thought battled through his anger. You sound just like Vanessa .

The nurse looked surprised. 'You're a bit high on the totem pole to be taking statements.' Carol debated momentarily how to describe her relationship with Tony. 'Colleague' was insufficient, 'landlord' somehow misleading and 'friend' both more and less than the truth. She shrugged. 'He feeds my cat.

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind'.

Discovering dedicated mystery booksellers was a bit like going to heaven without having to die first

It had seemed a good idea at the time to order the furniture for her new home online from a chain retailer.

Not even a hand-stitched suit could hide a body gone ruinously to seed. I was tempted to offer some fashion advice, but I didn't think he'd welcome the news that this year, bellies are being worn inside the trousers

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness; let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death.' Michel de Montaigne, Essais (1580)

Her anger was a memory now. She didn't believe in bearing grudges. She believed in killing them where they lay.

As with arsenical candles and papers and fabrics, items become established in commerce before their dangers are recognized, ensuring that any attempt to curtail their use will be resisted by manufacturers … and fought or ignored by politicians ideologically opposed to government interference …' Gettler's

They think of policemen as they do of Labradors – noble, loyal, good with children, man's protector and friend. In

Nothing warms the cockles of the heart more than the smug self-satisfaction of being right.

Nothing consoles you for the loss of someone you love. You absorb it into you. You move forward but you move in a different way.' She

With the passage of time, people's memories always edited the past. A lot of details slipped from their grasp, while others that had seemed trivial at the time took on greater weight.

It's your fault because you got me into Morag Fraser. I'd never even heard of the Hebridean Harpies series till you dragged me along to her event. And now I am totally hooked. I was reading Vampires on Vatersay till one in the morning. I just had to finish it. And then I started Banshees of Berneray at breakfast and I could hardly drag myself away from it to come and meet you.

Ruth Rendell, Reginald Hill, P.D. James, Ernest Tidyman, John Le Carré, Norman Mailer, Penelope Fitzgerald and Colin Dexter all transported

We never want to talk about the difficult things. But if we don't they poison the good things in our lives.

Alas, poor James is dead. / We see his face no more. / For what he thought was H2O / Was H2SO4

Without work, without direction, his thoughts were like a hamster on a wheel, circling and dancing with no destination and no possibility of arrival. With

junction at the top of the stairs. She gave a curious glance down General Tilney's corridor, but she

The bodies of two murdered women have been found this week. For the record, I didn't kill either of them.

He spread his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. 'Well, I'm not a cop. And I'm not a woman.' She couldn't resist. 'I had noticed.

Why are you only coming home just after three? Do you want a drink? I'm wide awake now.' He could be so like a small child, she thought. Out of nowhere, all eagerness and curiosity.

I told her you were probably here'. 'Thanks,' Tony said. 'Did I mention she thinks her brother's murder is my fault?