Ian Rankin
Writer
1960-04-28
Quotes by Ian Rankin
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And little girls went to charm schools. Now you've all got degrees from the University of Sarcasm.
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You wouldn't think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we'll do it one day. That's how negligent we are.
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Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies.
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War created bizarre allies, while peace itself could be divisive.
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And little girls went to charm schools. Now you've all got degrees from the University of Sarcasm.
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War created bizarre allies, while peace itself could be divisive.
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You wouldn't think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we'll do it one day. That's how negligent we are.
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Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies.
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I've always written. At the age of six or seven, I would get sheets of A4 paper and fold them in half, cut the edges to make a little eight-page booklet, break it up into squares and put in little stick men with little speech bubbles, and I'd have a spy story, a space story and a football story.
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At all times, think like a writer, and keep those antennae twitching - that way, you pick up new ideas.
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The most difficult part of any crime novel is the plotting. It all begins simply enough, but soon you're dealing with a multitude of linked characters, strands, themes and red herrings - and you need to try to control these unruly elements and weave them into a pattern.
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I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread - Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks.
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