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Every novel starts with a theme, and I am constantly looking for big ideas.

Peter James

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Peter James
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 22
Film Editor
Film Producer
Manufacturer
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Brighton
England
Starts
Constantly
Novel
Looking
Bigs
Ideas
Every
Theme

More quotes by Peter James

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I travel abroad constantly on book promotion and research, and the Internet is invaluable to me for accessing U.K. news in places such as America, which most of the time hasn't heard of England.
Peter James
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We're full of electricity, and the walls and floor of a building contain carbon - the same makeup as a video tape - and I think we give off a huge amount of energy. Some people are able to see that and pick that up. I think almost every person I've met in my life has had some sort of experience that they can't explain, and those fascinate me.
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Police do get obsessed with solving crimes. You know, particularly if there's been a murder, it becomes personal for the police officer very quickly, and it gets to the family. Even after they've retired, they carry on, not letting go.
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There are people who can achieve huge success in life, while adding a bit of fun and a splash of colour to this increasingly grey world.
Peter James
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If you talk to any cop, however hardened, and say, Has anything that's ever bothered you, they'll tell you about the death of a child that they had to deal with.
Peter James
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A news junkie, I read, daily, the 'Times/Sunday Times,' the 'Guardian/Observer,' 'Mail,' and the 'Argus' - both to keep up with crime in Brighton, where I set my novels, and because I think it is vital to support local papers - they provide a unique accountability for councils, emergency services and so much else, and are dangerously undervalued.
Peter James
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There's a really classic cliche every time you switch the TV on - you see cops arguing. I have spent a day a week for many years in the presence of police and I have never seen them argue. It's a military hierarchy. They do what they're told. There's no bickering.
Peter James
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Drafting is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.The closer you get to the end, the more you start to worry about the beginning.
Peter James
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Life's not some slot machine in an arcade with a sign that flashes up saying 'I'm sorry, you have been killed. Would you like another go?' But we might get put through the same test each time, get faced with the same situations until we've learned how to cope.
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Brighton is a beautiful seaside city, but it's got a dark underbelly.
Peter James
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Most good police officers are very open-minded. The bad ones are the ones who are close-minded.
Peter James
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Sometimes the body gets out of bed an hour before the brain.
Peter James
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Obviously I don't have whatever it is you need to be a successful writer.
Peter James
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I never actually wanted to write horror, oddly enough. It was a kind of misnomer, because I didn't ever actually write horror in the sense of the genre known for it. It was more a type of pigeon-holing in bookshops.
Peter James
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There's no question that ghosts exist. The big question for me is whether ghosts are simply electronic imprints left in the walls or the atmosphere of places, or whether they do actually represent something from the afterlife.
Peter James
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Women are afraid of walking at night, that someone pulls them into an alley and rapes them. That almost never happens. I mean, 98% of people who are raped, are raped by somebody they know. Somebody goes too far. But the destruction is just the same.
Peter James
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The biggest qualification to be a good police officer is to have a high degree of emotional intelligence.
Peter James
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There's a difference between what I call a dumb ghost and a smart ghost. The smart ghost is Hamlet's father - you know, he says, Get revenge, my son! That's incredibly rare. It's much more the grey lady in the same place everyday, moving across the floor.
Peter James
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I guess a lot of police keep their sanity by developing black humour.
Peter James