If, after five years, I hadn’t had anything published, I was just going to forget it and go back to TV full-time until I retired or they put me out to pasture. Simon Toyne Read Quote
We can make a concerted effort to stop poisoning the planet: that would be a good way of appeasing the gods. Simon Toyne Read Quote
We have long suspected that the faceless organisations that run our world – be it the church, multinational conglomerates or the government – keep things from us. Simon Toyne Read Quote
The author always knows more than the reader does at the start of a novel, and gradually, they share that knowledge with the reader – that’s storytelling. Simon Toyne Read Quote
I’m certainly not the first author to tiptoe into the conspiratorial, religious-tinged territory, but – and I hate to break this to the faithful – neither is Dan Brown. Simon Toyne Read Quote
When I set out to write ‘Sanctus,’ all I wanted to do was craft a piece of high quality entertainment. Simon Toyne Read Quote
The largest two books I’ve ever read more than once are ‘Bleak House’ by Charles Dickens and ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King, about 1,200 pages each. Simon Toyne Read Quote
I figured if I write a modern thriller but spliced in the DNA of a classic western – the drifter who comes into town with secrets – I could do something interesting with both genres. Westerns are also an incarnation of the classic knight errant tale, the lone warrior with a moral code, and I love those types of stories. Simon Toyne Read Quote
Epic stories, especially ‘quest narratives’ like ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey,’ are brilliant structures for storytelling. The quest lends itself to episodic storytelling. Simon Toyne Read Quote
I love researching all sorts of weird stuff. I always say, ‘God help me if the FBI came across my Internet search history.’ Simon Toyne Read Quote
