I came from nothing but I always knew I’d make money. I went to Monte Carlo with friends when I was 19. I saw all those rich people and I swore to myself that one day I’d be one of them.
I don’t have any phobias, although I do hate spiders.
I got used to ducking chairs. My dad was a terrible gambler, drinker and womaniser. I had to jump in the middle of my parents to stop them fighting more than once.
I hate violence and I didn’t plan to write horror; it just poured out of me. The great thing is that you can write humour, romance or political thrillers under that genre.
I let the books do the talking.
I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself.
I reward myself with a large vodka before settling down for The Simpsons. People laugh at this because I’m supposed to be dark and mysterious.
I think I was the first person to kill off a baby and that hurt me, but it was right for that chapter in The Rats.
I worry about the many things that could happen to the people I love. The books are full of that neurosis and I guess people tune into that.
I’ll scatter my mother’s ashes in the garden one day. Not near the old man, though.
I’m never going to win the Booker and I have no great literary pretensions, but I know how to write well. I do it the old-fashioned way with a pen and paper and I know my spelling and grammar. And I feel that others could happily stand up against anything written by, say, Salman Rushdie.
I’m terrible in the mornings, but I’m always at my desk by 10am.
In the early days, Steve King dubbed me the Godfather of Punk.
It’s one of the wonderful things about the horror genre. It allows you to cover so much – romance, humour, history, crime.
It’s very possible Diana had a third child.
Most of my money’s sitting in the bank. It’s a working-class thing. I want to know it’s there.
Never underestimate the hypocrisy of politicians.
No publisher with a brain would go up against JK Rowling, and as a writer I certainly wouldn’t.
That’s why I became a novelist in the first place. I can’t bear to work by committee. As a writer I can say whatever I want. All my stories begin with the premise ‘what if?’ I get to play God.
To avoid trashy films being made, I always asked for a lot of money up front, because I know then they’ll work hard to get their investment back.
When I started out, horror was suggested by other writers but never fulfilled. I wanted to do something different. Unfortunately, some writers took it too far and I took the rap.
Why shouldn’t Diana still be around? I absolutely believe in life after death.
You have to be disciplined as a writer.
