Ian Rankin Quotes

I'm not sure if I always wanted to be a writer, but I was always writing.

I thought I'd definitely be a writer, whatever I did.

Careers can disappear just as quickly as they're made, so I'm in no hurry.

I envisioned that as my life: staying in academia to make a living and then taking summers off to write my novels.

I didn't know at all I wanted to do TV. I thought I might go to law school. I might want to become a history professor.

Well, I've thought many times when my career was in the toilet, that I was going to have to seriously consider getting another job, I don't know what I'd do.

I'm trying to solidify a long-term career, because I have no other skills and no other abilities.

I'm not sure where my career is going here in Cincinnati.

I'm very proud of 'Gavin and Stacey,' but I think I have to write something else even to start to consider myself a writer. Just because you do something once, it doesn't mean that's who you are. I played football last night; it doesn't mean I'm a footballer.

I know I'll work, but not when or where. I never know what to pack.

I entered Harvard in 1965 not really knowing what I wanted to do. This confusion seems to have lost me a fellowship. G. D. Searle and Company, the pharmaceutical firm, had their home office in Skokie, and they gave a fellowship each year to a graduate from my high school that was going to major in science in college.

I remember all the writers I started with who I was embarrassed to be around - they were so much better than me. A lot of them are no longer writing. I guess they were better rounded and had other options. Due to social discomfort, I only had the one road.

There was a time, after I earned my graduate degree and before I sold my first novel, when it looked like I might have to get an office job.

For most of my life - well, maybe half of my life, but basically until I was in my mid-20s - I wrote stories. From the time I was 5 or 6 until I was 25. And I read a lot of stories during that time.

I got my transferrable skills from working at entry-level, gauging what I wanted from my career, and making sure I had what it took to get the one I truly wanted. But now there's a Catch 22: school leavers need experience to get jobs, but they can't get experience without jobs.

When you're working, you're in the present, but you've always got one eye on where your next job might be coming from, and I don't think that will ever go away.

I was about 17 when I began my career.

I've always been writing.

I've been writing since I was maybe seven.

I worked hard when I was a consultant. I worked hard when I was in graduate school looking at neuroscience. I worked hard as a teacher. But those are completely different career paths. And the lack of direction is why I didn't get far enough in any of those things.

I was in law school at the University of Kentucky and realized I didn't really like law school, so I took a creative writing course for something different.

I have been privileged to write across multiple facets of my life: to write romance novels, to write memoir, to write about leadership, and to write tax and social policy articles. The act of writing is integral to who I am. I'm a writer, a politician, a tax attorney, a civic leader, and an entrepreneur. I am proud of what I've accomplished.

I got out of university and there was a general panic throughout my family as to what I was going to do. For about six months, I did this job in recruitment and I was just so awful at it. I jumped before I was pushed.

The reality of a long-term career is that there are ups and downs.

When I left university with a history degree, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I was terrified of accidentally ending up in the wrong career.