Crime Author Quotes & Sayings

Once the screws left, most of the six or seven boys who had been overpowered by the SAS were not in any fit state to move, never mind talk. In May 1988 Malkie and Sammo and one other boy, whose name escapes me right now, got a total of twenty-seven years between them for mobbing and rioting and assault. — Stephen Richards

When Barlinnie's Prison doctor, Dr Danson, came to see Dingus, he turned in disgust at the state Dingus was left to lie in. Doctor Danson refused to treat him as he knew Dingus's injuries were life threatening, he told the top warden that Dingus would need to be rushed to Glasgow Royal Infirmary for emergency surgery. The screws in the seg block refused to listen to the doctor, they pushed and manhandled their own doctor out of Dingus's cell and threatened him with a severe beating if he made anything public about Dingus's injuries. — Stephen Richards

No one was expecting the six-man team of elite SAS officers to storm the prison, but that is exactly what they did do. Hurling stun grenade and tear gas canisters, they entered the jail through a skylight before freeing the terrified prison warder. — Stephen Richards

The riot screws did not stop there, they dragged him down the corridor where ten other nameless screws repeatedly coshed him over the head and face and body. Dingus by now was totally out cold, he had received the equivalent injuries of someone who was involved in a car crash. — Stephen Richards

This is the truth that sets you free: you are who you commit yourself to being, you have what you commit yourself to having, you live as you commit yourself to living. — Anthony Chapman

I keep telling the screws over and over again, 'If you treat a young boy in prison like a dog, keep him in a cell that is like a cage and constantly beat him and bully him, that boy is going to grow up hating yous and the system.' The only thing on his mind will be revenge, maybe it is not revenge on the screws that so frequently bullied and tortured him, but in the boy's eyes he is getting revenge on the uniform, as it all means the same thing in the boy's or man's eyes. — Stephen Richards

The screws are just as bad as us, maybe not now but certainly in the past they used to beat you with their riot batons, strip you naked, cuff your hands behind your backs and then take shots of kicking you in the head and body until you were knocked out. — Stephen Richards

I would make a HORRIBLE outlaw. I can plan the crime perfectly, but I'd also need to plan the outcomes to make it work. — Michelle M. Pillow

This was a new buzz, better than anything I'd tried before. For the first time, I could fight back at others. I'd even fight with a parked car! I was totally kyboshed on these drugs, I didn't care how many boys were standing outside the pub, I'd run over and fight the lot of them. Even though I came off second best, in my mind, I still walked away a winner. I showed them I wasn't a little shit-bag that always got battered, not when I had the drugs in me. — Stephen Richards

Rockweiler (nickname) has settled down over the years, he is a man mountain, he stands some six-and-a-half foot tall, and is round about eighteen or nineteen stones in weight. He too works in Barlinnie, this dog was responsible for giving the Wendy House seg unit the tough name tag, as he dished out the beatings to some very hard prisoners in the past. I can't take that away from him, but he was a bit of a shit bag as well because he wore the full riot body armour when he offered to fight. — Stephen Richards

The rush I got from crime was better than that of glue, drink or hash. I loved playing cat and mouse with the local coppers. He Who Dares Wins, the SAS motto, was very applicable to my life then. — Stephen Richards

Gary Moore is another legendary figure of sheer violence. In prison, Gary has spent most of his adult life inside one jail or another. When, on the odd occasion, he does get out of prison, it doesn't take him long to go on a murderous campaign of total terror. Gary has been charged and stood trial for some three or four different murders. — Stephen Richards

Another man of sheer violence was the late Stewart Boyd, he was killed in a car accident over in Spain's Costa del Sol shortly after being released from prison in June 2003. But he certainly left his mark on the city streets of Glasgow. He was a force to be reckoned with, a gang enforcer. Murder and witness intimidation were high on his criminal charge sheet. — Stephen Richards

There is no getting away from the fact, he is one of only a few screws in the system who are the real McCoy. Anyone reading this book who has spent time in Scottish prisons will no doubt agree, this chimp is up for it just as much as the prisoners. I personally would love to see more screws like him, as he doesn't bother with all this shitty report piss. If you want to fight him, he comes into your cell, one-on-one, man-to-man. — Stephen Richards

As a trial lawyer in front of a jury and an author of true-crime books, credibility has always meant everything to me. My only master and my only mistress are the facts and objectivity. I have no others. — Vincent Bugliosi

A few were journalists and one a novelist, who wanted to get it right. (Rhyme welcomed his presence; he himself was the subject of a series of novels based on cases he'd run and had written the author on several occasions about misrepresentations of real crime scene work. "Must you sensationalize?") — Jeffery Deaver

The riot screws didn't give a monkey's about the state he was in, no sir. They dragged him by his hair in to the first cell that was opened, where he was stripped and beaten. — Stephen Richards

THAT NIGHT, AT ONE OF LONDON'S OPEN-MIC SESSIONS, A YOUNG comedian enjoyed his first success, telling the tale of the naked Yank who mugged him for a tuxedo. — Anthony Chapman

Whatever guilt is perpetrated by some evil prompting, is grievous to the author of the crime. This is the first punishment of guilt that no one who is guilty is acquitted at the judgment seat of his own conscience.
[Lat., Exemplo quodcumque malo committitur, ipsi
Displicet auctori. Prima est haec ultio, quod se
Judice nemo nocens absolvitur.] — Juvenal

Everyone should have a kid. They really put things in perspective. I know a guy can get you one cheap. — Anthony Chapman

A single lie is the father of all lies — Sheeja Jose

LAURA ATCHISON, Author of "What Would A Wise Woman Do?", on DANGEROUS ODDS by Marisa Lankester:
"Truth is always wilder than fiction.
Hold on to your hats and enjoy this page turning look inside the world of sports betting from a good girl gone bad for love. — Laura Atchison

I can remember when believing in conspiracies wasn't cool. Now, in the
second decade of the twenty-first century, more people are starting to
sense that things may not be as they appear to be. The truth in Lord Acton's
classic axiom that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
becomes more self-evident every day. Politicians from the only two parties
we have to choose from break promises, are unresponsive to the will of the
people, and opt for war, austerity measures, and state control over and over
again. Gary Allen, author of the book None Dare Call It Conspiracy, defined
things perfectly when he wrote, "It must be remembered that the first job of
any conspiracy, whether it be in politics, crime or within a business office, is
to convince everyone else that no conspiracy exists. — Donald Jeffries

Love at first sight is a polite phrase used when one wants to fuck a stranger. — Sheeja Jose

Adrian (not sure if real Christian name?) was a PTI in Perth Prison before he came to work in the special units with us. Adrian was a gentleman, but he was also a very, very hard man that didn't take any shit. He is now working up in Inverness Prison, but I can tell you, this man can go for fun. I have witnessed him in action, I have been about all the diggers in Scotland ten times over and I would put this man up there with the best of them for a roll about with the prisoner. — Stephen Richards

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called "separable verbs." The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. — Mark Twain

Thirteen years have past since 1993, and I still have not seen one single book, documentary or anything to the biggest epidemic in Scottish, British prison history. I would go as far and say, no other prison in the world had fourteen men catching the HIV virus at the same time. — Stephen Richards

Big Rab has worked in Barlinnie's Wendy House for over seven and a half years. The average time a screw works in the seg blocks is two years, this man has seen it and done it all. Most prisoners will agree, he isn't a dog either but can be when he wants. He has had legendary roll abouts with some of Scotland's hardest criminals but at the end of it he doesn't hold any grudges. — Stephen Richards

Dead is always a good alibi — Spencer Kope

To write well is to have felt a tingle of joy in your being; to have left a little of your blood on the page' B.J.Kibble, author of DRY RAIN, LEGION, CHASING THE WIND,and CRIES FROM THE GRAVE. — B.J. Kibble

Fantasy works inwards upon its author, blurring the boundary between the visioned and the actual, and associating itself ever moreclosely with the Ego, so that the child who has fantasied himself a murderer ends by becoming a Loeb or a Leopold. The creative Imagination works outwards, steadily increasing the gap between the visioned and the actual, till this becomes the great gulf fixed between art and nature. Few writers of crime-stories become murderers
if any do, it is not the result of identifying themselves with their murderous heroes. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Crime isn't pretty, only fashionably dressed. — S.W. Frank

As equally as one may use size, the cunning James Crosbie was once classified as the most dangerous man in Scotland, notorious for his daring bank robberies and escaping on a bicycle. He was the criminal mastermind behind many successful crimes carried out throughout the UK. — Stephen Richards

Now if you want to look to the medical profession for a true hard bastard, there is none harder, in my opinion, than the man I will now name. I mean, 99.9 per cent of doctors would want to protect their pension and keep in with the in-crowd, not, though, this man amongst men. The star witness against the screws from Barlinnie was Doctor Simon Danson. — Stephen Richards

Mags seemed to attract trouble wherever she went. The Raploch Estate in Stirling was a nice backdrop, a middleclass place to live and bring up your kids until the scourge of drugs took a grip of its sons and daughters, like any other quiet township. The more the people needed drugs, the rougher and more violent the place became. — Stephen Richards

Crime oft recoils upon the author's head. — Seneca The Younger

Before Mags became a household name across Scotland, it was during the mid Nineties when she became an avid anti-paedophile campaigner against paedophiles on the Raploch Estate, attracting media attention, even appearing on Robert Kilroy-Silk's morning TV show. At the height of her anti-paedophilic crusade, she led a howling mob of protesters to a hostel near her home where a known paedophile was staying. — Stephen Richards

Truth is always wilder than fiction. Hold on to your hats and enjoy this page turning
look inside the world of sports betting from a good girl gone bad for love.
Laura Atchison, Author of What Would A Wise Woman Do? — Laura Atchison

I read a lot of science fiction, but I also mixed it up with a lot of other genres: crime, literary fiction, as well as nonfiction. Author-wise, I'm a fan of Stephen King, Lauren Beukes, Robert McCammon, Raymond Chandler, Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker and Gail Simone, among many others. — Adam Christopher

It was so funny, I witnessed this with my own eyes, Andy and the screw were like two WWF wrestlers, we were locked behind the grill gates cheering Andy on, the chants started. The chant was to the tune of Jingle Bells and went like this: Stab a screw, stab a screw, stab a screw today, all that fun it is to stab a screw on New Year's Day, but it was only 29 December. — Stephen Richards

You know, in a society where children just about have to seek parental permission to sit on Santa's knee, the word 'paedophile' should send more shivers up your spine than the word 'druggie'. — Stephen Richards

I was a big reader as a child. My father is a great book lover and a librarian, but he forbid me to read bad literature. I was not allowed to read Nancy Drew or books like that. I often say to him that me becoming a crime author is both a way of pleasing him and annoying him. — Asa Larsson

For god sake, open your eyes...the truth is crimes are real... the trouble is real... the horror is real... OPEN THE FUCKING EYES, you have freedom of speech, freedom do go to jail... My favourite characters are this in the jail!

If you ask me with what I will open my eyes, my answer is with the critical edition

The Leuchter Reports: Critical Edition
by Fred A. Leuchter, The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, The Common Sense by Thomas Paine — Deyth Banger

Simon Stiegler, Literatur, Belletristik, Crime, Psychology, Philosophy, Art, children, Adult, books, author,Autor — Simon Stiegler

Noting the lack of crime or security in the Netherlands, the author asked a native who guarded a national landmark. He got the replay, We all do. — Bill Bryson

There's just no comparison between these hard men, some fight with their bare hands, some with their brains and some with weapons. Some have a sixth sense for survival, avoiding death with catlike ease. I don't include any world champ at this or that, but I do include men that would wipe the floor with any world champion at anything you wanted to throw at them. — Stephen Richards

Aberdeenshire's Peterhead jail housed the hardest, badest, meanest motherfucker prisoners in the Scottish prison system. So no one was surprised when the pressure pot jail finally erupted in to violence that has not been seen or equalled since. — Stephen Richards

Henry read it and said, "A story has to have three things. They are a beginning, a middle and an end. They don't have to be in that order. You can start a story at the end or end it in the middle. There are no rules on that except where you, the author, decide to put all three parts. Your story has a beginning and an end. But it's good. Go put in a middle and bring it back to me."
I went away encouraged, rewrote the story and returned it to him two days later. Again he looked it over and said, "It's a good story but it lacks a bullet-between-the-eyes opening. Your stories should always have a knock-'em-dead opening." Then, looking with exaggerated suspicion around the crime-prone denizens of the room with an exaggerated suspicion, he said loudly, "I don't mean that literally. — John William Tuohy

Over the next sixteen years, I would grow close to the ringleaders of the infamous Peterhead Prison Riot and hostage-taking incidents would loom large in my life. — Stephen Richards

I'm unique for a suspense author in that I don't have a specialty background. A lot of suspense writers used to be lawyers or crime beat reporters. I didn't even know a cop when I started out. I finally figured out that I could visit prisons - I just had to be willing to make the phone calls. — Lisa Gardner

A crime is like a crack in reality, and it is the author's role to explore those cracks. As a writer, I like to see how they impinge on people. — Natsuo Kirino

Dr Danson made a series of claims about violent assaults on three prisoners by staff at Barlinnie. Three prison officers subsequently appeared in court charged with assaulting inmates. — Stephen Richards

On deathbed every single good, bad, ugly moment becomes special. — Sheeja Jose