Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

It’s not the writing that tells the story, it’s the reading.

Silence is a tap left running: it fills and fills until it overflows and becomes insurmountable.

You read people’s books, and you think you know them. They’re having a conversation with you for hundreds of pages, and there’s an intimacy there that you develop on your own.

I was tempted to type in “How do I call my uncle an idiot but make it sound constructive?” But I didn’t think AI would have the plethora of curse words I required.

Mystery writers these days always have to find a way to take away their crime-solvers’ phones because otherwise the reader sits there the whole time thinking, Google it!

He was the type of person who picked up and carried a suitcase with wheels, just so he could complain about how heavy it was.

You want the difference between pulp and literature? Between a real writer and just a writer? I’ll tell you: adverbs.” “Adverbs?” “You use too many of them,” he said, derisively.

A bunch of writers in a room requires a collective noun that the English language doesn’t have. A condolence, perhaps. A sympathy. It’s a war hospital for the written word.

I want to be known for the art I made, for my words and my voice, not for the mark some man left on me.

Sequels, it seems, are about doing two things at once: being new and familiar at the same time.

His sentences had a way of cascading over one another, the oven between thought and speech undercooking everything: he spoke in first drafts.

Having a conversation with Andy is sometimes like watching a hurdler barge through all the hurdles without jumping and drag the wooden planks along: no matter the obstacle, he trudges on.

Wyatt did a borderline offensive sign of the cross that was so wobbly Jesus would need a chiropractor.

It’s the stories themselves, not the covers and the shelf space or the festival invites, that outlive us.

A sequel is an admission that you’ve been reduced to imitating yourself. Don Marquis

It’s a staple of mystery novels that, just before the murder happens, certain conversations are overheard in the deep of night. This is to be the case here.

Here are some further truths. Seven writers board a train. At the end of the line, five will leave it alive. One will be in cuffs.

The rules are simple: nothing supernatural; no surprise identical twins; the killer must be introduced early on (in fact, I’ve already done that and we’re not even through the first chapter yet, though I expect you may have skipped the prelims) and be a major enough character to impact the plot. That last one’s important. Gone are the days when the butler dunnit: in order to play fair, the killer must have a name, often used.

A book isn’t a book until it’s read.

But legacy isn’t a stamp left by the people with ink. It’s not about leaving your fingerprints, it’s about having fingerprints left on you. In the case of books, the legacy isn’t created by writing it, it’s created by the people who pick it up, who expand and enrich and enlighten your words with how they reinterpret, remember and relive them.

The world can’t stomach two strong successful women in the same place, so we have to hate each other, we have to compete.

the crystal waters of Katherine Gorge, the red-dirt hiking of Alice Springs—

Back then?” she scoffed. “It’s happening now. So some of the really bad eggs are ‘canceled,’ apologize, and slink away for a while—and then they’re right back selling more books than ever, on our TVs, filling stadiums. The problem is deeper than that, and every person who sits back and thinks we fixed it because I don’t get slapped on the arse at work anymore is ignoring the deep-seated structural issues.

How do we measure a man? He may be odious and foul, but if his words have value, they will outlive him.

Staring at a blank page can make you feel alone; I wasn’t prepared for how affecting it was simply to have someone tell me I wasn’t.

Yes, that’s what I was saying . . .” Having a conversation with Andy is sometimes like watching a hurdler barge through all the hurdles without jumping and drag the wooden planks along: no matter the obstacle, he trudges on.