Philip Kerr

I sometimes think that writers are just people who might have become criminals except for the fact that they were lucky enough to learn how to write. Although in my case The Guardian thinks I’m a criminal because I learned to read and write. My God, if my critics saw me raise fucking Lazarus from the dead they would say I’d only done it to help promote one of my books.
I think it’s simpler than that. Being a writer is a kind of elegant sociopathy, that’s all. I don’t know how else you’d describe a person who doesn’t care about other people very much, who thinks mainly of themselves, who has a complete disregard for rules, and who lies for a living. Some sociopahts become murderers, it’s true ; but probably just as many become writers. I laughed. « Hell I know I did ».