Quotes by Mark Billingham

“London was a city of ghosts, some deader than others. Thorne knew that in this respect, it wasn't unlike any other major city - New York or Paris or Sydney - but he felt instinctively that London w...”

“I wanted to write at school - to write funny stories which the teacher might ask me to read out to the class. It's all basically about showing off.”

“The day a character becomes predictable is the day a writer should think about moving on - because the reader certainly will.”

“I believe that if writers want their readers to care about a character, they have to care themselves. I have to root for a detective who screws up as much as Thorne does, who shares my birthday, my...”

“We didn't have all the distractions that young people have today. We didn't have these incredible computer games and social networks to engage with. I understand that. But once young readers do dis...”

“A reader's own imagination is a far more powerful form of CGI than anything any movie can provide because it's unique. In your own imagination, you can enter all sorts of worlds, and they are uniqu...”

“My dad was a terrible father. Dreadful. But he had a very difficult childhood. He was fostered - he never knew who his father was. So he had a very different attitude to family and kids. I don't ha...”

“London was a city of ghosts, some deader than others. Thorne knew that in this respect, it wasn't unlike any other major city - New York or Paris or Sydney - but he felt instinctively that London w...”