Quotes of the Year 2019: The best of what authors had to say

"We didn’t consider ourselves nationalists or loyalists, but during that summer, you saw people become radicalised." – Geraldine Quigley, author of Music Love Drugs War

"Could Fight Club have been made today? No. Could American Psycho have been made today? Probably not. So I don’t know, what can you make today? I’m trying to figure it out. Where’s the taboo?" - Bret Easton Ellis

"You’ve got witnesses, suspects, victims and perpetrators – the whole process has to look very different from their point of view. I try to present each throughout the book." – Tana French on her narrative approach in The Wych Elm

"I really just got very interested in them and started thinking about their marriage and the difference between the two of them." – Christine Dwyer Hickey on writing about Edward and Josephine Hopper in The Narrow Land

"Owls and cats are familiar to witches, they always have been, but I wanted to do something slightly different with them in this story" – Sarah Maria Griffin on her novel Other Words For Smoke

"There’s an unruly sense in the book – an almost gleeful lack of inhibition, which does not appear in any of my other books to date." – James Ellroy on his latest novel This Storm

"Given the choice of being a Dublin clerk, or hanging out with the Mick Jagger of Victorian theatre, I can understand his decision." – Joseph O’Connor on Bram Stoker

“We need people to look up to. We need people to punish. Celebrities are such an easy way to do that.” – Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones & The Six

You can read the complete 'Quotes of the Year’ collection in one brilliant sweep in the Hot Press Annual – in which we distill the highlights and low-points of the year, across 132 vital, beautifully designed pages. Starring heroes of the year Fontaines D.C. on the front we cover Music, Culture, Sport, Film, Politics, the Environment and much, much more. Buy this superb publication direct from Hot Press here.