Neil Cross Quotes

#1. The fictional character with whom I most profoundly identified was Yossarian in Catch-22. Always did, still do.

Neil Cross

#2. The thematic bucket of vomit that I've been chained to since I was about 9 is the moral complexity of anti-heroism. I have always been interested in good people who do bad things for understandable reasons.

Neil Cross

#3. I am very interested in theology. In fact, my first degree was in theology, so it's something that interests me greatly.

Neil Cross

#4. I don't get on with novelists, don't enjoy their company. Once you've worked for a publisher, you understand the species, see them in their natural habitat, and it's not always pretty.

Neil Cross

#5. I find broadcast intensely stressful, to the extent that perversely, I've never seen anything I've written actually broadcast on television. So, the audience response is something which I became aware of gradually.

Neil Cross

#6. And by the right thing, I mean that whatever step we take next, the first criteria we should consider is the people who have been loyal to us, thus far, which is primarily our audience.

Neil Cross

#7. Writing a novel is an intense and lonely business, but you have the reward at the end of a very direct dialogue between you and the reader.

Neil Cross

#8. What's the golden rule of social networking?"
Luther hangs up his coat. "Don't do it?

Neil Cross

#9. No, we don't walk away. But when we're holding on to something precious, we run. We run and run, fast as we can, and we don't stop running until we are out from under the shadow.

Neil Cross

#10. What I love about Indiana Jones is he always bites off slightly more than he can chew. The guy he's fighting is always slightly tougher than he is, but he just refuses to give up. And that's what makes Indiana Jones a hero: not his superpowers, but his refusal to be beaten.

Neil Cross

#11. To kind of go through life not caring is a spectacular attribute. It's one I wish I had.

Neil Cross

#12. People often express surprise that I'm not a psychopath. But it's not about what I want to do to other people, it's that I'm scared of what other people might do to me.

Neil Cross

#13. It's perceived as an accolade to be published as a 'literary' writer, but, actually, it's pompous and it's fake. Literary fiction is often nothing more than a genre in itself.

Neil Cross

#14. I had a complicated life until I was 25. I was born in Bristol and was brought up by my mum and my stepfather in Edinburgh. He introduced me to books.

Neil Cross