Category - Mark Billingham

Discover the thoughtful Quotes of Mark Billingham, a philosopher and author. Our collection of his most impactful quotes reflects his deep understanding of language, philosophy, and history. Motivational Quotes of Mark Billingham
Whether seeking thought-provoking reflections or academic wisdom, Mark Billinghams words offer a rich source of intellectual inspiration. #MarkBillingham Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

I’ve often said the reader knows every bit as much about Thorne as I do. When I created him for ‘Sleepyhead,’ I was determined he should be a character who would develop, book by book, change and grow as we all do, and who – crucially – would be unpredictable.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

Whether you do stand-up comedy or write a story, you have a duty to deliver. As a comedian, you walk out on stage, and you have a minute to hook them, or they’ll start booing. As a writer, it’s very similar. A reader doesn’t have time to say, ‘I’ll give him 50 pages, as it’s not very good yet, but I hope it’ll get better.’

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

If something is crucial to the plot, then I’d better be sure I’ve got my facts straight. Readers of crime novels are smart and savvy, and they’ll waste no time letting me know if there’s a hole in my plot.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

Too much research can be the writer’s enemy. You can spend days on end in the British Library or prowling the streets with a Dictaphone, and it’s easy to convince yourself that you’re working hard. Often, it can be an excuse not to work; a classic displacement activity.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

It never ceases to amaze me that readers who are willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to the motivation of a vicious serial killer get high and mighty because I have put a coffee shop where there isn’t one. Er… it’s a novel. I made one up. I’m allowed to make stuff up. I’d go as far as to suggest that I make stuff up for a living.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

I used to be something of an obsessive when it came to research. When I first began writing the Thorne novels, I would drive to a set of traffic lights in the early hours of the morning to make sure you could turn left. I thought it was important to get even the most trivial details right.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

I moved from acting to stand-up because castings are just about what you look like. It doesn’t matter if you can act or not. In comedy, no one cares what you look like.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

I admire writers such as Elmore Leonard who can nail a character in three or four lines of dialogue, so he doesn’t need pages of back story or clumsy exposition.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

In America, they have specialist mystery book stores with whole sections devoted to cat mysteries, golf mysteries, quilting mysteries. It’s a hugely broad genre from the darkest noir to tales of a 19th-century vet who solves crimes, thanks to his talking cat.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

All you can hope for when you get a book adapted for TV is that you get a good actor and not some muppet off ‘EastEnders.’

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

I discovered reading through libraries. I grew up in a house that wasn’t brimming with books.

– Mark Billingham

Mark Billingham

A reader’s own imagination is a far more powerful form of CGI than anything any movie can provide because it’s unique. In your own imagination, you can enter all sorts of worlds, and they are unique to you because no other reader will interpret a book the same way.

– Mark Billingham

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