Ruth Rendell

“I go to the House of Lords in the afternoon and try to walk halfway. I may be thinking about what I'm going to write. It's much more satisfying than sitting in a chair.”

“I don't choose my villains and heroes for political reasons.”

“I have a soft spot for charities that help children.”

“I went into a church and simply said, 'Goodbye.' It is the terrible unfairness of life. How could God allow cancer, poverty, the sheer unfairness of so many lives? That is the question which finishes it for me.”

“People want to marry me for companionship. No thanks! I've got my cats for that!”

“It doesn't matter what kind of book you write - you ought to write it well and with some kind of style and elegance.”

“I think it says something that I have never had an obscene letter. A young man once attempted one, but it was so totally illiterate and hopeless that it made me laugh.”

“People are still being put into geriatric wards when they don't need it. They need treatment, not just being put into bed and fed.”

“I'm not much of an eater.”

“I wouldn't be young again even if it were possible, but I am not going to pretend that growing old is all sweetness and light.”

“I write every morning. From about a quarter to nine to a quarter to one. It might be nine to one, or 8:30 to 12:30.”

“I very much like writing about homosexual relations. I don't quite know why. Perhaps it's because I feel there's still so much to be said about them.”

“I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?'”

“Where blackmail is involved, telling the police is always a good option.”

“Nobody will go on being remembered for a very long time, unless you're Shakespeare or Milton. I have no hope of being remembered at all.”

“Wexford started off as a very conventional, tough cop and not a very original character because I had no idea I was writing a series, of course. I had no idea I'd created a series character.”

“I never carry a notebook while walking around London. I just pick those things up. I'm very good at quizzes.”

“I don't know what I would do if I didn't write.”

“I don't think there is a fictional character who resembles me because fictional characters are not real!”

“Why do we have to have violence, torture, brutality in crime dramas every time we turn on television? Any new crime drama is going to have, sooner or later, a lot of torture and nasty things that make people flinch. Lots of young people I know shrink and flinch from that kind of thing on television, so I think showing it is a mistake.”