Anthony Horowitz

With every year that passes, I get further away from my target audience, and while I've been happy to think of myself as a father figure to these kids, I'd be a little distressed to be thought of as a grandfather figure. ”

A children's author on a soapbox is not a pleasant sight but I have become drawn into issues, slightly unwillingly, relating to young people, literacy and youth justice: just look at the number of young people we have locked up in prison, and the uselessness of it. ”

I'm not a huge fan of prequels and sequels and the cynical rush to make money on the back of books by other writers who are now dead. ”

As a children's author, reviewers are generally very nice to you. I only ever wrote one adult book and received such a kicking for it that I was in trauma for the next six months. ”

It's hard to write when you think every sentence is going to be read by a million kids. ”

You like to think with young adults that with your books, a little part of it has reached them and will stay with them. It is great to be part of an eight-year-old's world. ”

Everywhere, publishers are being squeezed out. ”

I had three brilliant English teachers at secondary school. They found the writer in me. ”

I enjoy scaring people. ”

I vividly remember being 14. That was the age when I started to get happy: I started being a writer and stopped being a loser. ”