"I'm proud to be a writer. I'm doing the job all my heroes did."

"For no real reason " well, perhaps because of the seriousness under the trees or Nader's hair, which was very messy and covered in little grass seeds " Katie began to giggle. She knew it was wrong, yet it was also natural. She covered her mouth with both hands, but Nader was already pale with revulsion. He turned and marched away into unwanted sunlight, leaving her to wonder why bad things happened and why no good person prevented them."

"This is a landscape of dreams cemented in the past, of hopes gone cold, of girls and boys for rent in officially empty tower blocks, where none is truly so."

"Don't mock my suggestions, Ridley " one day in the near future, they might just save your life. Maxwell D. Kalist."

"Reality was dawning on him and he hated reality. If you were him, so would you."

"Most people assume I write at night because of the kind of books I write, but I can shut out the light with my mind."

"It's better to be remembered for what you said, not what you earned."

"Writing is just building a new world " one character, one place, one maniac at a time."

"There are some great, subversive female writers out there. Gender should not affect anything. It does, but it shouldn't."

"I do not do free e-books. I occasionally like to eat that thing you people call 'food'."

"Writing is more about telling other peoples' stories than your own."

"I lose it when I can't write. I feel sad and confused and fucked off."

"Too old for dolls. Too ill for tablets."

"I like to think I've written something worth reading when I cry the tears of the characters."

"I've always thought that the best moments can come from the worst times."

"Read the right books and we can be as wild and worry-free as we've ever wanted to be. No law can stop us reading."

"This is no place for limits."

"Beyond the boundaries of herself, her parents and the enclosing garden walls, were open fields and other waiting places she still knew nothing of " lies of the land, perhaps. What Katie did know is that out there in the lonely nowhere was a special quietness, free of the sounds of daytime birds or foxes at night " and that it was a quietness she might like to listen to one day."

"My best writing happens when I'm fighting to produce it."

"I'm warning you because you're young and vulnerable. He's a dirty, lying, conniving piece of shit and he's dangerous. Gottfried Baumauer."

"People who don't read fiction are scared of what's inside their own heads."

"Are there not times, Ridley, when you yourself wish only to hear the best in people " and not to be dragged downwards into the underworld we all regularly inhabit?"

"She is intent on pleasing the men that frighten her."

"She heard him speak, but did not recognise the problem in his voice " only later did she realise it was that thing he'd been concealing " known as guilt."

"You are a more powerful person than you might have ever imagined. Maxwell D. Kalist."

"I'm much more than a writer " I'm someone who puts different words together in an interesting way."

"We are all the sum of a million moments in our lives."

"The fear of silence is a fear everyone should overcome."

"Nothing in her life makes sense.All she craves is for the pieces of the puzzle to fit together again.She is sure one day it will happen. She just doesn't know when.She can't fight injustice alone" for that, she needs her friends."

"When I write, it feels like there are two little creatures that sit on each of my shoulders. One whispers, 'You can do this. You've got what it takes.' The other sounds like my mother-in-law."

"Trap yourself inside your own brain, switch off the light, block all the escape routes, then turn your back on everything you know to be reality and try and survive there. Try. Living. Nowhere."

"I'll be your friend until you find a better one."

"Youngsters deserve no opinions."

"No matter what the good boys tell you, criminality is not a level playing field."

"Prayer is better than pills."

"When a person sets out to learn from others and not to teach others he becomes a true writer."

"People who love reading get an instantly warm feeling in their bellies when they hear others describe getting comfortable with a good book."

"The loudest silence is camera silence."

"Books are like rivers, meandering this way and that, but taking us on a steady, flowing course to somewhere different."

"Every book contains a secret " even the writer doesn't always know what it is."

"The most lies we will ever tell in our lives will be to ourselves."

"He's in a side room alone with her and it's far too fucking hot."

"Someone asked me, 'How do you write a book?' I said, 'I live with a pen in one hand."

"It's much harder to twist the charitable arm of a lottery winner compared to that of a man at his lowest ebb. It sounds like the wrong way round at first, but when you really put your nut to it, people are more frightened of losing the big shit than of having fuck all to begin with and losing a bit of that."

"Lyrics paved my teenage route to loving words. I take those passionate mini-stories with me everywhere."

"On some days she was able to see both sun and moon at the same time. Like feuding cousins, they hung in two corners of the vast world-ceiling refusing to look at one another. The moon was always harder to spot and more faded, but it was there if you looked, as many things were."

"I have a very addictive personality. If it isn't women, it's money. If it isn't money, it's speeding. And if it isn't speeding, it's women. I also like expensive video consoles where I can punch, kick, screw, shoot and drive legally all night anywhere I fucking well want to."

"I live, love and loathe my characters. They stole my mind. They stole my heart."

"I always feel anxious if anyone's close to uncovering my secrets."

"Bea stared at the pencils as if they were enemies."