Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, (born 17 February 1930), who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries. [Wikipedia]
Quotes
"The knives of jealousy are honed on details."
"One is either a story-teller or one is not. And if you are a story-teller, and it is possible for you to write, you will start writing stories."
"I think to be driven to want to kill must be such a terrible burden."
"I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel sorry for my psychopaths, because I do."
"I think about death every day - what it would be like, why it would happen to me. It would be humiliating to be afraid."
"I would think that the old-fashioned detective story which is so much a matter of clues and puzzles, is certainly on the way out, if not already gone. Crime novels now are much more novels of character, and novels which look at the world we live in."
"Writing is, while the process going on, a very private thing for me. I understand, I quite like the idea that some people write something and they read or show it to a friend or a companion or somebody they live with, and discuss it. But to me that's impossible. If I do that, the whole thing falls apart. It's as if it's brought into the light of day, and reality destroys it. I never discuss it at all."
"To be a classic, a novel should be original."
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Ruth Rendell interview and her thoughts on English tea.