Edinburgh is a TARDIS. It's much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, so though it's a very small city and geographically quite contained, you could spend your whole life exploring it and never quite get to the centre of what makes it tick.

[observation, 2013] The Scottish independence debate is school-playground stuff. And anyone who sticks his head above the parapet, there's a rotten tomato waiting for him from one side or the other.

[speculating how his imaginary character, Inspector Rebus, would view his creator] He'd find me a wishy-washy, lily-livered liberal who's never had to do a hard day's manual work in his life, who's been suckled by the state from birth. That's kind of why I like him. I like having these internal arguments with him about the way the world is.

I don't spend money on fripperies. Just on essentials like beer and vinyl.

I remember being very impressed as a young lad when I read in Sounds that Sting was into Thomas Pynchon. 'Wow! I like Pynchon. He likes Pynchon. Sting must be OK.' Later on I discovered, 'No, he's not, he's a pillock.'

[Talking about the imminent prospect of his fictional detective, DI John Rebus, having to retire from the force] He's now fifty-eight, fifty-nine. And he has to retire at sixty. Questions have been asked in the Scottish Parliament. There's a Fife MSP called Helen Eadie who asked the Justice Minister if she could change the retirement age for cops in Scotland so that Rebus could keep going. And I think Kathy Jamieson said that probably people - real-life cops - wouldn't be too happy about the retirement age changing for a fictional character.