You can't believe one thing and do another. What you believe and what you do are the same thing.
Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction.
You wouldn't think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we'll do it one day. That's how negligent we are.
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.
At all times, think like a writer, and keep those antennae twitching - that way, you pick up new ideas.
No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking like hell that you've got nothing new to say.
Rebus was eating breakfast in the canteen and wishing there was more caffeine in the coffee, or more coffee in the coffee come to that.
Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.
Stupid truth, always resisting simplicity
On the one hand, you're the same person, but as you get older, you change somewhat, and you never know how it's going to affect your work.
If I put down my tweeter machine for a minute, I actually can communicate with people. As an aside, astonishingly, I just started doing Twitter.