A biography for Lee Childhasn’t been written yet.
“I've discovered writers by reading books left in airplane seats and weird hotels.”
“Do it once and do it right and do it quickly”
“I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.”
“I had a brief theater background and loved the backstage world there's more backstage work in television, so I saw a job advertised and applied, and got it. That was back in 1977, when getting jobs was easy.”
“I was fired from my television job, simple as that. Well, downsized, really, a classic 1990s situation.”
“I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.”
“I'd been a thriller reader all my life.”
“There is nothing wrong with just telling the story.”
“It's always tense when you move a character from a book to the screen. Always tense.”
“The key to thrillers is vicarious pleasure.”
“I love visiting LA. It's an endlessly fascinating city, and is, of course, America's entertainment capital. Each time I go, I fall in love with it all over again. That said, it's not the sort of place I'd want to live.”
“My mother still calls me Jim and that is about it. Everyone else calls me Lee. My wife calls me whatever.”
“I have a kind of old-fashioned, artisan approach.”
“The first day of the rest of my life.”
“We would all love to walk up to someone and shoot them in the head, there's no doubt about that. We're too civilised to admit it, but we're happy to read about it.”
“I grew up in Birmingham, where they made useful things and made them well.”
“The thriller is not a recent invention. It probably goes back to the dawn of storytelling.”
“I have the 'thing' worked out - the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out.”
“All of us write wish fulfillment.”
“Most actors are small, anyway - at least compared to me.”