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I had thought for years, probably 30 or 40 years, that it would be a lot of fun to try my hand at a classic English mystery novel... I love that form very much because the reader is so familiar with all of the types of characters that are in there that they already identify with the book.

Alan Bradley

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Alan Bradley
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: October 10
Novelist
Writer
City of Toronto
Trying
Fun
Familiar
Much
Probably
English
Hand
Characters
Years
Hands
Mystery
Would
Form
Reader
Love
Thought
Type
Identify
Character
Novel
Types
Book
Already
Classic

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It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called 'Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.
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I was learning that among friends, a smile can be better than a belly laugh.
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My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon. They were soon to emigrate to Canada, and the aerial ride was meant to be a last view of their beloved England.
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Whenever I'm with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.
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Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.
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If poisons were ponies, I'd put my money on cyanide.
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As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No ... eight days a week.
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To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.
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I grew up in a very British family who had been transplanted to Canada, and my grandmother's house was filled with English books. I was a very early reader, so I was really brought up being surrounded with piles of British books and British newspapers, British magazines. I developed a really great love of England.
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I'm at that age where I watch such things with two minds, one that cackles at these capers and another that never gets much beyond a rather jaded and self-conscious smile, like the Mona Lisa.
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Except I'm aware that as a writer you can't get away with as much writing for children as you can with adults. Children have much more finely tuned senses of justice, morals, and ethics. They are much more Platonic: children are symmetrical, before we begin to fragment them with our own nonsensical ideas and squelch their natural joy in knowledge.
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I always knew that I wanted to work on my own material - something that would be more long-lasting than short-lived electronic transmissions.
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During a long career in TV broadcasting, I spent a lot of time contributing to other people's creations.
Alan Bradley
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Liberals have always been the most fervent Imperialists.
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Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.
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The very best people are like that. They don't entangle you like flypaper.
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Whenever I'm out-of-doors and find myself wanting to have a first-rate think, I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.
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Growing up in a Canadian household that was more British than Big Ben, I dreamed of flying to England myself and visiting the places my family never tired of talking about. I always woke up before the plane landed.
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I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, and yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden, gagging, writhing, agonizing death.
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The spectrum on the list is very broad. It includes leftists who think that whiny liberals should be stuffed in a sack and drowned.
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