Words matter. These are the best Philip Kerr Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Religion was quite a thing in our house – we were Baptists. Some Sundays I went to church three times. If there was a talk on missionary work in the afternoon, I could be there all bloody day. But religion took its first big knock after Dad died.
Being British, we tend to think of ourselves as America’s best friend. And as your best friend, that gives us a little bit of license to point out things that could have been handled better.
I think John le Carre is, at 77, the greatest living writer alive. He is a master craftsman.
The mark of a writer is to make a story as likely as possible, and I’ve done my best to deliver authentic atmosphere.
As a writer, you rely on whatever makes you up as a person, whether those things are twisted and nasty or otherwise.
I always try to find a story in the margins of history, but I don’t like to do too much that’s improbable.
I always worry I’ve probably written one too many Bernie Gunther books and that I should probably give him his gold watch.
There’s something weird about the Scots. We are a troubled, slightly tortured race – the sense of the respectable outward character and, inside, the turmoil of something darker.
I will say that anyone who supports Scottish independence should go to Athens. Because nothing works. It is a disaster. It is a ruined, dirty place where people do not have money or future prospects. The day one after independence, Scotland would be worse.
I used to play quite a good lead guitar, R&B style. Clapton and BB King are heroes.
James Bond was an early favourite, although I didn’t understand much of it. I read the Bible a lot, too. You might say that this was my favourite, since I seemed to read it so often.
History asks us to imagine ourselves in a period, but it’s a very different situation when you’re in that period and faced with those situations.
When I feel I’m repeating myself, I’ll probably pack it in. What will undoubtedly happen is I’ll write one too many. The important thing is to recognize when you’ve written too many and stop there.
There’s a great tradition among the English of writing about Berlin. It’s kind of a state of mind, almost. That even translates in terms of music. A lot of people go to Berlin with the idea that it’s a state of mind.
If I weren’t a writer, I think I might have thrown myself more enthusiastically into advertising. But, it’s difficult to imagine being a diligent copywriter. It would be quite exasperating for me.
I think the context of an hour-long drama gives breathing space that you don’t get in a film.
The fascination for me writing about crime in Berlin was the idea that there was this much bigger crime taking place in the background, a fantastically epochal moment in history which is just going on. That just sort of makes the whole thing have a greater resonance.
I don’t think any of us know how we would react until we were put in a situation where we have to do something bad or do something good. I think I’d like to believe I’d act like a decent human being, but I’m realistic to know I don’t know.
I really wanted to write the way Kubrick makes films – ‘Strangelove,’ ‘2001’, ‘Clockwork Orange’, ‘Barry Lyndon’ – they’re all so different.
The most interesting legal philosophy is German, so naturally I went to Germany, particularly to Berlin, quite a bit.
