Anthony Horowitz Quotes

Content and only his death would suffice. The metal key that

When I was young, a child never asked questions of his elders," Claire Deverill said.
"Was that before or after the First World War?" Matt asked.

It seemed that there was nothing you could find here that was not expensive and very little that was actually necessary.

When the doorbell rings at three o'clock in the morning its never good news

You don't want to be hanging around this village. You don't want to be anywhere near here. Do you understand me? I shouldn't be talking to you like this. But if you know what's good for you, you'll get away. You'll go as far away as you can and you won't come back.

Abbiatico and Salvinelli," he said. "It cost me thirty grand - or my mother, anyway.

But the thing is, you see -and to be honest, I don't like to mention this- I'm a bit short. There just aren't enough people getting murdered.

We all make choices, Cossack. Who we are in this world, what we do in it. Generous or selfish. Happy or sad. Good or evil. It's all down to choice.

I love writing different things.

I have a couple of questions," he said.
"Do, please, go ahead."
"My first one is for Yassen Gregorovich." He turned to the Russian. "Why are you working for this lunatic?"
"I sometimes think that I was richer when I was eight years old than most people will be in their lifetime!"
"Do we have to listen to this?" Alex asked.

Look at self-satisfied pop singers or greasy, semi-literate athletes. People worship them. Why?"
"Because they're talented.

Alternatively you can twist the cylinder round twice clockwise; that turns it into a hand grenade. Five-second fuse. I tested it on one of my assistants. Poor old Bennett ... he should be out of hospital in a couple of months.

I let go and dropped on all fours ... as quiet as a cat. Actually I landed on a cat. It screeched and howled then shot away. So much for stealth!

You must know that feeling when it's raining outside and the heating's on and you lose yourself, utterly, in a book. You read and you read and you feel the pages slipping through your fingers until suddenly there are fewer in your right hand than there are in your left and you want to slow down but you still hurtle on towards a conclusion you can hardly bear to discover.

No offense, but I'd rather kiss the horse.

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.

He had a particular liking for olde England, especially if the olde was spelled with an e. He found things like croquet, cream teas and cricket both incomprehensible and irresistible and he would have been in his element here.

Come join me for some tea so we can discuss how your giong to die

When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news.

Dried the flowers myself. Belladonna, oleander, and mistletoe. Three of my favorites. All of them poisonous ... but such lovely colors.

It's funny how things work out sometimes.

You'd better get onto MI6. They'll be in charge of security at the airport."
"Of course." Sir Graham moved toward the door. He stopped and turned around. "And what happens if you're wrong?" he inquired. "What happens if these soccer players do somehow get killed?"
Kellner shrugged. "At least we'll know what we're dealing with," he said. "And they lost every single one of their games while they were in Nigeria. I'm sure we can put together another team.

In a whodunnit, when a detective hears that Sir Somebody Smith has been stabbed thirty-six times on a train or decapitated, they accept it as a quite natural occurrence. They pack their bags and head off to ask questions, collect clues, ultimately to make an arrest. But I wasn't a detective. I was an editor - and, until a week ago, not a single one of my acquaintances had managed to die in an unusual and violent manner. Apart from my own parents and Alan, I hardly knew anyone who had died at all. It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery and what is it that attracts us - the crime or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable? I made a mental note to check out Alan's sales figures in San Pedro Sula in Honduras (the murder capital of the world). It might be that they didn't read him at all.

Looking back now, I would say that this was one of the first valuable lessons I learned, and one that would be useful in my future line of work. Sometimes things go wrong. It is inevitable. But it is a mistake to waste time and energy worrying about events that you cannot influence. Once they have happened, let them go.

I'm not very good at creating worlds. I prefer to write about the world as it is.

of those clothes.

I am perfectly qualified to give you an injection. You're not going to tell me you're afraid of a little prick?"
"I wouldn't call you that ...

I'm not a huge fan of prequels and sequels and the cynical rush to make money on the back of books by other writers who are now dead.

Sometimes I think the family I was brought up in was 100 years out of date.

Smiling back at her, it occurs to me that I've never met a mean librarian.

There was something wrong about the house in Eastfield Terrace. Something unpleasant.

But then, he thought, most politicians are small and shabby, the sort of people who have been bullied at school.
That's why they become politicians.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right.

Alan Blunt got in touch with me and asked me to put you up here for the rest of the week, to pretend that you're my son. I have to say, you don't look anything like me."
"I don't look anything like myself either," Alex said.

If you think it's hard getting in, you should try getting out.

It is, of course, traditional in children's literature to get rid of the parents.

Everywhere, publishers are being squeezed out.

When are you at your most defenseless?

You like to think with young adults that with your books, a little part of it has reached them and will stay with them. It is great to be part of an eight-year-old's world.

The house is seventies modern with sliding windows, gas-effect and a giant TV in the living room. There are almost no books. I'm not making any judgement. It's just the sort of thing I can't help but notice.

You cannot defeat your enemies until you know who they are.

You weren't in any real danger. We knew exactly where you were all the time.

I've watched every episode of Poirot and Midsomer Murders on TV. I never guess the ending and I can't wait for the moment when the detective gathers all the suspects in the room and, like a magician conjuring silk scarves out of the air, makes the whole thing make sense.

I start work at 7 A.M. and write all day, seven days a week. If I don't write, I can't sleep.

I tried to get a job in a freak show," he [Gregor] went on, "but they said I was overqualified. So I became the porter at Groosham Grange.

Separated from the cave by an inlet, the waves pounding

It was quite elementary,' returned the detective with a languid gesture of one hand.

I'm a private victim of a peculiar household.

He was a commander in the Russian army at a time when the Russians were our enemies and still part of the Soviet Union . This wasn't very long ago, Alex.The collapse of communism. It was only in 1989 that the Berlin Wall came down." She stopped. "I suppose none of this means very much to you."
"Well, it wouldn't," Alex said. "I was only two years old.

I don't really like the word 'hobbies.'

Much later that night, I thought the door opened and a man came into the bedroom. He was leaning on a stick. He didn't say anything but he stood there, looking sadly at Andreas and me, and as a shaft of moonlight came slanting in through the window, I recognized Atticus Pünd. I was asleep, of course, and dreaming, but I remember wondering how he had managed to enter my world before the thought occurred to me that maybe it was I who had entered his.

Your name?"The movements of the man's mouth didn't quite match what he was saying, so seeing him speak was a bit like watching a badly dubbed film.
"Alex Gardiner," Alex said.
"Your real name?"
"I just told you."
"You lied. Your real name is Alex Rider."
"Why ask if you think you know?

When you are in his sort of business - now my business - you are not defined by who you are but who you are not.

She tried to smile sympathetically, but with her face it wasn't quite possible.

Your temperature's normal, though I'd say it's the only thing about you that is.

Whatever you say, old boy. Just look after yourself. And whatever you do, don't swallow the gum!

You're never too young to die.

There's a dream world that we visit sometimes and that's how we found out who we are.

... my life has been a remarkable one. Maybe one day someone will write a book about me ... "
"I've never much cared for horror stories.

I have a great belief in not doing anything unless I'm passionate about it.

There's a name for people with an interest in the moon," Alex said. "They're called lunatics.

We live in an age when there is no room for the impossible.

I don't know what I'd do without you. There's no one else to look after me. And it's not just that. I sometimes think you're the only person who really knows me. I only feel normal when I'm with you.

I hear it still. As I lay down my pen and take to my bed, I am aware of the bow being drawn across the bridge and the music rises into the night sky. It is far away and barely audible - but there it is! A pizzicato. Then a tremelo. The style is unmistakable. It is Sherlock Holmes who is playing. It must be. I hope with all my heart that he is playing for me ...

If my children were as unhappy as I was at school, I'd send them somewhere else, but it never occurred to my parents.

The CIA agent looked more dead than alive. Alex wondered if he had been hit, but there was no sign of any blood. Perhaps he was in shock.

With every year that passes, I get further away from my target audience, and while I've been happy to think of myself as a father figure to these kids, I'd be a little distressed to be thought of as a grandfather figure.

Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative.

Fraser had the immediate thought that his was a man whom it would be easy to dislike. He did not just arouse antipathy; he almost seemed to cultivate it.

How could you not wish to see what tomorrow brings? How could you not want to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, to eat ice cream in the Piazza Navona, to watch the children throwing coins into the fountain?

All that sadness. All that anger. It is the smoke that gets into your eyes. If you do not blow it away, how can you hope to see?

Routine is the one thing the can get you killed. It tells the enemy where you're going and when you're going to be there.

I had chosen to play the detective - and if there is one thing that unites all the detectives I've ever read about, it's their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other. They may well be family or friends. But the detective is always the outsider. He asks the necessary questions but he doesn't actually form a relationship with anyone. He doesn't trust them, and they in turn are afraid of him. It's a relationship based entirely on deception and it's one that, ultimately, goes nowhere. Once the killer has been identified, the detective leaves and is never seen again. In fact, everyone is glad to see the back of him.

Authors have odd relationships with their creations They owe their fame and fortune to their characters but feel enslaved by them.

You have to take responsibility for who you are

Pünd remembered their first case together when Fraser had failed to notice that his travelling companion, on the three-fifty train from Paddington, was actually dead.

He looked from the phone to the unconscious figure of the Salesman. "What did you do to him?" he asked.
"He got the wrong number," Alex said.

Writing about magic is harder than writing about spies because you're dealing with something that doesn't really exist.

It's hard to write when you think every sentence is going to be read by a million kids.

Alex decided he'd had enough. He put down his knife. "All right," he said. "You've made it pretty clear that you don't want to work with me. Well, that's fine. Because I don't want to work with you either. And for what it's worth, nobody would ever believe you were my mom because no mom would ever behave like you."
"Alex ... ," Carver began.
"Forget it! I'm going back to London. And if you're Mr. Byrne asks why, you can tell him I didn't like the jelly, so I went home to get some jam.

You must control your emotions. You must control your feelings. If there is any fear or insecurity, you must destroy it before it destroys you. It is not the size or the strength of your opponent that matters. These can be measured. It is what cannot be measured ... courage, determination ... that count.

On some nights I take a little laudanum and a few months ago Mrs Abernetty recommended pillows stuffed with camel hair. She was absolutely right.

Was it fate? Was it destiny?" "I think it was Alan Blunt.

What happened?" he demanded. "I heard an explosion!"
"Yeah.That was me. I set the boat alight."
"What?"
"I set fire to the boat."
"But we're on the boat!"
"I know.

It has been the dream of very few men to rule the entire world.
- Dr. Grief

Some things can't be changed. They'll always happen the way they were supposed to.

The usual graffiti on the wall. JRH WAS HERE. NICK LOVES CASS. Visitors leaving the worst parts of themselves behind in fluorescent paint.

My greatest fear is disappointing the reader, so each book has to be better than the one before.

We're all on the road to ruin but some are further ahead than others.

My perfect reader doesn't just read - he or she devours books.

You can kiss me if you like," she said.
Alex let go of her and turned away. "Thanks, Fiona," he said. "But frankly I'd prefer to kiss the horse.

You'd have thought that after twenty years editing murder mysteries I'd have noticed when I found myself in the middle of one.

Let me tell you, Alex. He's a crook. He's based here in Miami. He's a nasty piece of work."
"He's mexican" Troy added.

If you look at Charles Dickens's time, there were so many different levels of society and everybody understood their place in it, it was that complex and simple. I'm not sure we have that now.

I didn't set fire to the building." "No, but you did pull it into the river." "That put the fire out!

And you think he'll tell?" Matt asked. "We will make him tell us." Han Shan-tung muttered the words casually, but there was something about the way he spoke that made the skin crawl.

He didn't want to remember anymore. remembering only hurt him ... everytime.

Bond had left his ammunition back at the motel but he had his gun and his wallet which, he decided, was all you really needed to get by in America.

You see the world this way because you're greedy and mad. People give to charity because they want to help.

We only see what we want to see.