Some writers, I'm told, look for their characters' surnames in telephone directories. I don't - it seems too obvious. Or too deliberate: if you go looking for names, you're bound to find them, of course, but I've always had a… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
The brilliant thing about swimming is that, while you're doing it, there's nothing else you could be getting on with, like the ironing or sorting out the children. My mind goes into free-float mode; some of the best ideas for… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
I never write about CIA conspiracies or the FBI or mafia or anything like that because I just don't understand that world. But I… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
I am trying to write novels for properly clever people, but I also want them to be proper novels that also stick in a… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
“That's not me talking, it's your inner voice. I'd attempt the accent, only I don't speak low self-esteem. It's a language I've never needed… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
“What they'd got was a fat, balding academic who bandied about the phrase "family annihilation", especially when there were cameras pointed at him, and… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
In West Yorkshire, I'd have to drive three quarters of an hour to go shopping. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
No highbrow literary type would ever say 'Moby Dick' is good but it's just about a whale, or a Jane Austen would be important… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
There are very few well-adjusted people in my books. But I do think that's normal. Because everyone does have their issues and hang-ups. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
With me, even if my life depended on it, I wouldn't be able to cry. Not with somebody there. Because even if I'm talking… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
If you ask people if they enjoy crime novels, they'll say, 'Oh, my guilty pleasure is...' then name a really brilliant crime writer. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
All through childhood, I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming. — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
