Ruth Rendell
Ruth Rendell
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBEwas an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth17 February 1930
Ruth Rendell quotes about
charities
I have a soft spot for charities that help children.
compulsive
I do write about obsession, but I don't think I have an obsession for writing. I'm not a compulsive writer. I like to watch obsession in other people, watch the way it makes them behave.
buried finding finds flowers gardens goes gone houses indeed instead killer lived next serial sinister street trees turned victims
I think what would I do next if, as in his case, he goes to look at the place where a serial killer lived and indeed buried his victims and instead of finding this very squalid and sinister street he finds it's all gone and the whole place has been turned into a very pretty little enclave of small, pretty houses and gardens and trees and flowers and cobbled streets.
difficulty quite
I have had quite a lot of prizes, but I don't think it makes any difference to the ease or difficulty to the writing process.
barbara believe
I always know when a novel is going to be a Barbara Vine one. In fact I believe that if I weren't to write it as Barbara Vine, I wouldn't be able to write it at all.
barbara mysteries slowly sort vines
I don't think the Barbara Vines are mysteries in any sense. The Barbara Vine is much more slowly paced. It is a much more in-depth, searching sort of book; it doesn't necessarily have a murder in it.
columns interested run
I am interested in names and what they say; it is true. I like to look at the columns of baby names in the newspapers. But I don't run out of new ones for my characters.
attempted illiterate man obscene says totally
I think it says something that I have never had an obscene letter. A young man once attempted one, but it was so totally illiterate and hopeless that it made me laugh.
detective life spend
I don't feel that I wanted to spend my whole writing life - which is my life - writing detective stories.
failure subjects
I always write about subjects which attract me because if I didn't, it would be awful, a failure.
biggest gets ignored introduce knows parties people picked surrounded until women word
Old women especially are invisible. I have been to parties where no one knows who I am, so I am ignored until I introduce myself to someone picked at random. Immediately, word gets round, and I am surrounded by people who tell me they are my biggest fans.
given ipod life
I think I must be the only grandmother in the world who was given an iPod by her grandsons. It has changed my life - I'd be lost without it.
attitude bright people talk therefore
I don't like the way young people write and talk about the old. I don't like their attitude, which, if they weren't young and therefore bright and vibrant, would be called outdated.
allow church finishes god life question sheer simply terrible
I went into a church and simply said, 'Goodbye.' It is the terrible unfairness of life. How could God allow cancer, poverty, the sheer unfairness of so many lives? That is the question which finishes it for me.