Ned Beauman

There are probably a couple of things I'd never write about until everyone I know is dead. And then there's other stuff…

— Ned Beauman

I would love to learn how to air kiss non-awkwardly.

— Ned Beauman

Naming one thing after another cannot, logically, increase the chances of the new thing turning out like the old thing.

— Ned Beauman

“That was how Sinner got his first taste of anything other than the froth on his father's ale. It made you grimace,…

— Ned Beauman

Politicians often like to suggest that their policies come about through objective thinking, but if you look at British fascists, for example,…

— Ned Beauman

Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without…

— Ned Beauman

Until I was 16, I read nothing but science fiction. I loved William Gibson and I still do. But my favourite book…

— Ned Beauman

“What does it do?" said Loeser. "You feel as if you're being sucked down this fathomless, gloomy tunnel. Or to put it…

— Ned Beauman

Most romances aren't swept aside by big historical events. Most romances in the history of the world fall apart because of other,…

— Ned Beauman

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that…

— Ned Beauman

I'm very finicky about when I'm in the right mood to write. So most days, I find some excuse not to do…

— Ned Beauman

“accidents, like women, allude”

— Ned Beauman

I love sentences. I love characters. But most of all, perhaps, I love to work on plot, and that may be where…

— Ned Beauman

You couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t hate at least something. Indeed, perhaps you couldn’t truly love anything if you didn’t…

— Ned Beauman

“The Nazis, he had written in his latest, "are wedded to a sort of aesthetico-moral fallacy, which is that if a man…

— Ned Beauman

“...a portrait of a muscular grey-haired man with a grim, almost demented gaze and the sort of moustache that could beat you…

— Ned Beauman

There's never a bad time to put earplugs in. They're the kind of thing you can reject as a bit lame, but…

— Ned Beauman

Just as the best way to judge an adult is by his or her record collection, the best way to judge a…

— Ned Beauman

“You know she'll probably be at the party tonight? Which is why I'm absolutely not going if we don't get some coke.'…

— Ned Beauman

“Loeser found it hard to believe that God was forever slapping the face of the universe like a policeman trying to stop…

— Ned Beauman

I don't have a day job, so I read any time of day.

— Ned Beauman

I never really have blank page syndrome. I don't get blocked. I have a plan for my novel before I start which,…

— Ned Beauman

I read 'The Good Soldier' by Ford Madox Ford again every so often.

— Ned Beauman

I always save a huge book for a flight, because then you read it at both airports and on the plane and…

— Ned Beauman

I was always determined that one way or another I would force a book on the world, even if I had to…

— Ned Beauman