Quotes from Val McDermid

It forced me to realise that I'd been blaming you for not being flawless. And none of us is flawless.' Another sigh. 'I was so angry with myself for what happened to Michael and Lucy that I had to turn my anger somewhere else and you were the easiest target.

You know, I've often wondered. It's pretty clear what they were up to in Sodom, but what do you suppose the sin of Gomorrah was?' Carol asked.

It was a lot easier to be optimistic about equality when you didn't have to confront the Neanderthals on a daily basis. When you could imagine that people were actually changing their minds because they'd stopped groping secretaries at the photocopier.

If I didn't like her so much, I'd hate her.

It's a piece of cake, being a lawyer or a doctor or a computer systems analyst or an accountant. Libraries are full of books telling you how to do it. The only textbooks for private eyes are on fiction shelves, and I don't remember ever reading one that told me how to interrogate an eight-year old without feeling like I was auditioning for the Gestapo.

No two bodies will decompose in the same way, and at the same rate. You can have two bodies that are literally six feet apart and they will decompose in entirely different manners. It could be the amount of fat on the body. It could be the drugs they were taking, or the medication. It could be the type of clothing they're wearing. It could be that one has a particular odour that is more attractive to flies than the other. Absolutely anything.

Everybody's got the right to go to hell in the handcart of their choice.

Father, everybody has mugs these days. It's not a sign of debauchery and disrepute to drink tea from a mug.

To move forward, you have to accept the truth of a situation. Not persist in myth-making.

I'm not into little boys till they're old enough to have their own credit card.

It was a source of constant disappointment to Catherine Morland that her life did not more closely resemble her books. Or rather, that the books in which she found its likeness were so unexciting.

I was just finishing up my drink then I was off to get the night bus.' Carol grinned. 'Your sophistication never ceases to amaze me. What's wrong with a taxi?' 'You get a better class of nutter on the night bus. I blend in perfectly

You've always been handy with a knife, Mother

Around five-eight, slim, good shoulders, narrow hips, legs and trunk in proportion, short dark hair, side parting, dark eyes, probably blue, shadows under the eyes, fair skin, average nose, wide mouth, lower lip fuller than upper.

She watched his pale, square hands on the map, the short almost stubby fingers, with their neatly trimmed nails and a sparse scattering of fine black hairs on the bottom section of each finger. Appalled, she felt a stirring of desire. You're pathetic as an adolescent, she savagely chided herself. Like a teenager who fancies the first teacher who says anything nice about your work. Grow up, Jordan!

He looked so vulnerable and fallible, his shoulders slumped, his head down, that Carol's impulses overrode the decision she'd taken only minutes before to play it cool. She stepped forward and pulled Tony into a tight hug. 'If anyone can do it, you can,' she whispered against his chin like a cat marking its territory.

You are Tadeusz Radecki? I am in the right place?' 'I know who I am. What I want to know is who you are.

We all present versions of ourselves. The person you are at work is not the same person you are at home. The face we present in our most intimate relationships is not the face we present to the world.

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