Sophie Hannah Quotes & Sayings

When a writer tries to copy another writer, it's doomed to fail. — Sophie Hannah

Alas, the human mind is a perverse, uncontrollable organ, — Sophie Hannah

Prejudices are comforting: everyone should make sure to cultivate at least three. — Sophie Hannah

But we'll stumble on, she and I, into our messy future. And we'll have each other — Sophie Hannah

I love the house we're in, but at the same time, I'm hooked on the romance of house-hunting. — Sophie Hannah

Why treat the people closest to you like strangers? — Sophie Hannah

It is the job of art to replace unhappy true stories with happier inventions. — Sophie Hannah

You know how I feel about Occam's Razor. The simplest answer isn't usually the right one. Devious and unlikely is everywhere.' 'You ought to launch your own theory: Occam's Beard, you could call it. — Sophie Hannah

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 superstitious hunch that the names you find by accident are always going to be better and more satisfying somehow. — Sophie Hannah

I am trying to write novels for properly clever people, but I also want them to be proper novels that also stick in a person's mind and have an atmosphere about them. — Sophie Hannah

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 mentioned the titles of books and articles he'd written to anyone who would listen; who blatantly thought he was the mutt's nuts, as Sellers had so aptly put it. — Sophie Hannah

Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer. — Sophie Hannah

It is hate that makes people kill, Mr Catchpool, not love. Never love. Please be rational. — Sophie Hannah

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 plots come into my head while I'm ploughing up and down the pool. — Sophie Hannah

I want my books to explore motives which make people think, 'Wow! Imagine the psychological state you'd have to be in for that to be your motive!' Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy - they're rational reasons for committing murder. — Sophie Hannah

I know a lot of crime writers feel very underrated, like they're not taken seriously, and they want to be just thought of as writers rather than ghettoised as crime writers, but I love being thought of firmly as a crime writer. — Sophie Hannah

I never do enjoy my breaks, long or short ... I look forward to them intensely, but as soon as they begin, I can feel them starting to end. I feel the temporariness of my freedom, and find it hard to concentrate on anything other than the sensation of it trickling away. — Sophie Hannah

There comes a point in most cases - and by no means only those in which Hercule Poirot has involved himself - when one starts to feel that it would be a greater comfort, and actually no less effective, to talk only to oneself and dispense with all attempts to communicate with the outside world. — Sophie Hannah

What you cannot imagine, you cannot fear. — Sophie Hannah

Weak people always attack strong people - it's safer. It's weak people who are dangerous, who lash out uncontrollably and hurt you back. Stong people can walk away - no repercussions, you see, if you attack a stong person. — Sophie Hannah

When my children were very young, I was slated to go on a business trip. When it was nearly canceled, I decided I wouldn't tell anyone and go off for a week's vacation anyway. In the end, the trip went off as planned. But I was intrigued by the idea of an illicit holiday. — Sophie Hannah

A lot of women feel like they should be enjoying motherhood, they should be fulfilled and shouldn't be thinking, 'I wish I didn't have to do this.' — Sophie Hannah

I like to savor the smell of a garden I cannot see. Do you smell it? The pine, and the lavender - oh, yes, very strongly the lavender. The nose is as important as the eyes. Ask any horticulturist." Poirot chuckled. "I think that if you and I were to meet the one who created this garden, I would make the more favorable impression upon him. — Sophie Hannah

Different people regard rules differently, no matter what those rules happen to be. Mutinous characters like me always resent constraints, even perfectly sensible ones, but there are some who welcome their existence and enforcement because it makes them feel safer. Protected. — Sophie Hannah

Life punishes the needy; admit you can't live without something and it's taken away. — Sophie Hannah

We manufacture anger to give ourselves the illusion of power when we feel weak and helpless. — Sophie Hannah

No attack is ever really an attack on the victim. It's the perpetrator attacking an aspect of himself that he loathes. He or she. — Sophie Hannah

Simon would disapprove, in the way that people who lacked life experience always disapproved of others having adventures they had so far missed out on. — Sophie Hannah

You can always, and easily, give somebody the gift of hope and faith, even in the midst of despair. — Sophie Hannah

In West Yorkshire, I'd have to drive three quarters of an hour to go shopping. — Sophie Hannah

I am a fellow commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. My husband used to be a lecturer at Leeds University, and we lived in Yorkshire for 11 years. When he gave up his job, we realised we could live wherever we liked. — Sophie Hannah

He didn't subscribe to the view ... that spirituality was a fast track to happiness. He believed the opposite was true: spiritual people suffered more than most. — Sophie Hannah

I am actually incredibly contented and jolly. But, and I have no idea why this is, I have a really strong empathy with all kinds of warped and destructive modes of thinking. I don't know why, but those things co-exist. — Sophie Hannah

I was working as a secretary in Manchester and thought I would always do that. Then I got this letter offering me a two-year fellowship where I could write; they would pay me a salary and give me a flat to live in. It was heaven. — Sophie Hannah

I've got lots of favourite authors, but I would say Nicci French because I look more forward to reading her next new book than any other author. — Sophie Hannah

A loose tile; Poirot could not sleep in a room with such a thing. — Sophie Hannah

We cannot help how we feel, but we can choose whether or not to act upon those feelings. — Sophie Hannah

No one has been buried at Mill Road Cemetery in Cambridge, England, for many years, and so the place has a shady, overgrown magic about it. — Sophie Hannah

My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In The Library.' — Sophie Hannah

What surprised me most while writing 'The Monogram Murders' was that everything I needed seemed to arrive in my head exactly when I needed it. — Sophie Hannah

Poirot is a classic character from fiction, not a MacBook Air; he would not benefit from updates. — Sophie Hannah

For me, a big part of writing psychological thrillers is choosing crimes committed for motives which would only apply to a particular person in a particular situation; a unique, one-off motive that is born out of someone's particular range of psychological afflictions. — Sophie Hannah

It's funny that sometimes you can only describe something with perfect accuracy by being wildly inaccurate. — Sophie Hannah

In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11. — Sophie Hannah

Seems to me there's not much time to read about other people's lives and live your own while you're at it. If I have to choose, and I reckon I do, I'll choose living my own life over reading summat about someone else's. — Sophie Hannah

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 think I do understand individual human harmfulness. — Sophie Hannah

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 to learn. — Sophie Hannah

Oh, God. I can't do this. I only slightly want to have a baby. I think. I actually don't know at all. — Sophie Hannah

I always notice the dysfunctional dynamic of human relationships because most places where you encounter it, people are trying to pretend it isn't happening. — Sophie Hannah

My favourite Friday treat is to drive out of the centre of Cambridge, where we live, and go for a swim at the health club I've just joined out in the countryside at Quy. It's a lovely pool, inside a converted barn. Usually it's just me and a couple of other swimmers there. — Sophie Hannah

Sometimes a gentle perambulation causes a new idea to rise to the surface of one's thoughts. — Sophie Hannah

Most people seemed to think stable equalled happy. — Sophie Hannah

Everything is personal - the poems and the crime novels. I have never been involved in any murders, but there are strong autobiographical elements in each. — Sophie Hannah

Good sense appears the most underhand of tactics to a man who has no reserves of his own to draw upon. — Sophie Hannah

No, thanks,' said Sam, who had never understood why he often refused drinks he would have liked to accept. — Sophie Hannah

Is Jason intelligent enough to realise that if you describe a thirty-eight-year-old woman as middle-aged, she's more likely to want to kill you than help you? Because Lauren isn't. — Sophie Hannah

Sometimes, convenience has the appearance of logic. — Sophie Hannah

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

When I set out to write crime fiction, I didn't think to myself, 'I'm going to model myself on Agatha Christie' or 'I am going to be a crime writer in the Christie tradition'. — Sophie Hannah

If there's an aspect of your life that's making you unhappy and you can escape from it, why wait? Too many people stick around and try to improve things, which often means slogging your guts out to compensate for the deficiencies of others. Personally, I'm a fan of the discard: leave it; move on. — Sophie Hannah

I'm not cut out to lug babies around! — Sophie Hannah

Poirot smoothed his mustache, as if he imagined that laughing might have shaken it out of shape. — Sophie Hannah

Wall of lies?' Proust muttered. 'Is that the one that borders the orchard of obsession that contains the tree of lunacy? — Sophie Hannah

My characters all have issues, but I don't see that as weird or abnormal because I think in real life there are very few bland, normal people. — Sophie Hannah

If you only have one world, one life, then however brilliant it is most of the time, you have nowhere to run when you need to escape from it for a while. — Sophie Hannah

Sometimes the person everyone is afraid of alarming or offending has a slightly less fixed idea about what sort of person they are, and they're neither alarmed nor offended. Unaware that others have carved their likes and dislikes in the psychological equivalent of stone, they dare to make exceptions to their own rules in a way that their nearest and dearest might not. — Sophie Hannah

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

Freddy Mercury's reflections about supersonic women are making me glad that I've never met one: they sound like a bit of a handful - not very easy-going. — Sophie Hannah

I thought to myself, 'No matter what happens from now on, even if my heart ends up in pieces, this makes it all worth it, this moment. — Sophie Hannah

Are men like babies? Is trying to distract them a better tactic than asking them to behave reasonably? — Sophie Hannah

He wondered how many new starts a person was entitled to, how many times one could say it was the other person's fault and truly believe it. — Sophie Hannah

I'm low-level angry most of the time, never really know why,' Simon told him. 'You got the brunt of it. This time. — Sophie Hannah

When your world falls apart and everything's ruined, you lose part of yourself. Not all, inconveniently. One half, the best half, dies. The other half lives. — Sophie Hannah

No ramifications whatsoever. You're not going to ramificate; you don't know what it means. You don't know which of the words I use are real words and which I'm making up — Sophie Hannah

She'd buy diamond-studded earplugs and go and lie on a beach in the Caribbean where the whining of jealous bastards wouldn't reach her. — Sophie Hannah

Agatha Christie never wrote books that just started with a dead body, and a 'Let's find out who the murderer is', which is kind of mysterious but not that mysterious. She always started with, 'How can this thing be happening; isn't it strange?' — Sophie Hannah

I thought to myself that a conversation was a strange thing that could take you almost anywhere. Often you were left stranded miles from where you had started, with no idea about how to get back. — Sophie Hannah

Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention. — Sophie Hannah

I will be angry until my dying day, Mr Catchpool. Greater sinners persecuting lesser sinners in the name of morality - that's something worth raging about. — Sophie Hannah

All through childhood, I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming. — Sophie Hannah

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 if she wasn't just writing about romantic relationships. — Sophie Hannah

Its weak people who are dangerous, who lash out uncontrollably and hurt you back. Strong people can walk away- no repercussions, you see, if you attack a strong person. — Sophie Hannah

I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?' — Sophie Hannah

My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing, and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak. — Sophie Hannah

If we knew more about psychology, we would be better equipped to deal with other people's psychological damage which they might project onto us. — Sophie Hannah

In my opinion, a superior mind counts for nothing unless accompanied by a superior heart. — Sophie Hannah

I've been alone with my thoughts for too long; I'm starting to feel unreal. — Sophie Hannah

Look at us. One bleeding body, one corpse, and a husk who's been half dead for years. No one who took an objective look at this room could think it was anything but too late, Ruth. For all of us. — Sophie Hannah

Cambridge is heaven, I am convinced it is the nicest place in the world to live. As you walk round, most people look incredibly bright, as if they are probably off to win a Nobel prize. — Sophie Hannah

Nobody has ever written as many enjoyable, fun-to-read crime novels as Agatha Christie. It's all about the storytelling and the pleasure of the reader. She doesn't want to be deep or highbrow. — Sophie Hannah

Crime fiction is a way of satisfying that nosy need to know. — Sophie Hannah

The crimes in my books are committed by people who can't keep it together any more. They do something to express their own pain, and that has a terrible effect on somebody else. — Sophie Hannah

Lies were lethal, however honourable the intentions of the liar. They deprived people of the opportunity to know the basic facts of their own lives. — Sophie Hannah

It would not have done Poirot any good whatever to state that his wishes were the precise opposite of hers in this respect. Nothing fascinated him more than the private passions of strangers he would probably never meet again. — Sophie Hannah

Only Agatha Christie can write like Agatha Christie. — Sophie Hannah

One cannot do such harm to another and not wound one's own soul in the process. — Sophie Hannah

make decisions based on hope, not fear. — Sophie Hannah

She was irritated, briefly, by the thought that she might be becoming more mature. Why should she become a better person when no one else did? — Sophie Hannah

Try as I might, Agatha Christie is unique. The actual writing style can't be exactly the same, so instead of trying to replicate it exactly, the way I got around it was by inventing a new narrator. — Sophie Hannah

Agatha Christie's writing is incredibly skillful because her books are incredibly intellectually puzzling and challenging. — Sophie Hannah