John Connolly

“There is a very conservative element of crime writers that don't recognise what I do is crime fiction.”

“What is good for you creatively is usually bad commercially. You thrive financially by sticking to a series and not fiddling about too much. You do yourself harm by moving away from the series and the genre. By trying things not based in that particular mode of writing, you will just lose readers.”

“Writers are magpies by nature, always collecting shiny things, storing them away and looking for connections of things.”

“I think the act of reading imbues the reader with a sensitivity toward the outside world that people who don't read can sometimes lack. I know it seems like a contradiction in terms; after all reading is such a solitary, internalizing act that it appears to represent a disengagement from day-to-day...”

“There's a difference between living and just surviving. Do something you love, and find someone to love who loves that you love what you do. It is really that simple. And that hard.”

“I believe in those whom I love and trust. All else is foolishness. This god is as empty as his church. His followers choose to attribute all of their good fortune to him, but when he ignores their pleas or leaves them to suffer, they say only that he ignores their pleas or leaves them to suffer, the...”