Quotes By Lee Child

All of us write wish fulfillment.

For me the end of a book is just as exciting as it is for a reader.

I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.

The key to thrillers is vicarious pleasure.

In principle if I could not have a home I wouldn't. But not having a home would be too difficult procedurally, going from hotel to hotel, the gap of three hours where you're hungry and tired.

She's a reflection of my fascination with the diversity of America she's totally normal in New York, but a freak in Texas. There are dozens of such clashes in America.

Male authors always take care to make their heroes at least one inch taller than they are, and considerably more muscular. Just as female authors give their heroines better hair and slimmer thighs.

I was fired from my television job, simple as that. Well, downsized, really, a classic 1990s situation.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end.

You mustn't fall in love with your own hero.

For men, as they get bogged down with responsibilities, commitments, bureaucracy, it is a fantasy just to think of shedding everything literally, walking away with nothing at all, and just hitting the road.

What do I miss about the UK? Sadly, almost nothing. Maybe the midnight sun, in June in the north. That's all.

I'm not really into gourmet food; I'm the kind of guy who just stops by a place that looks good rather than heading for the restaurant of the moment.

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.

I write in the afternoon, from about 12 until 6 or 7. I use an upstairs room as my office. Once I get going I keep at it, and it usually takes about six months from the first blank screen until 'The End.'

It's always sad if anybody you know has a personal problem.

My mother still calls me Jim and that is about it. Everyone else calls me Lee. My wife calls me whatever.

I love visiting LA. It's an endlessly fascinating city, and is, of course, America's entertainment capital. Each time I go, I fall in love with it all over again. That said, it's not the sort of place I'd want to live.

I was in television drama, which is a first cousin to the movies, and I trust myself to make the right decisions.

The thriller is not a recent invention. It probably goes back to the dawn of storytelling.

L.A. has a fantastic car scene and because the climate is so gentle, cars can last forever.

It's always tense when you move a character from a book to the screen. Always tense.

So long as readers keep reading and my publishers keep publishing, I plan to keep on writing. I'd have to be an idiot to be burnt-out in this job.

I need a stimulating environment to write because my books are driven at 100 miles per hour at a time.

I have a kind of old-fashioned, artisan approach.

I do a little fact checking now and then. Other than that its impact is simply that email has revolutionized communication for me, and my website has built up a community of readers, which is a lot of fun.

I grew up in Birmingham, where they made useful things and made them well.

I like food, like any other guy, but it is not the main thing in my life. I can do without it.

Yeah, I am pretty sure of myself.