Quote

For me, a big part of writing psychological thrillers is choosing crimes committed for motives which would only apply to a particular person in a particular situation; a unique, one-off motive that is born out of someone's particular range of psychological afflictions.

What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it.

The why of murder always fascinates me so much more than the how.

I'm not sure whay I've been drawn to this subject, except that murder is a subject that has always drawn people for as long as people have been telling stories.

It is a question of fact, whether the influence of motives be fixed by laws of nature, so that they shall always have the same effect in the same circumstances.

Psychopaths view any social exchange as a 'feeding opportunity,' a contest or a test of wills in which there can be only one winner. Their motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly and without remorse.

You can have the most wonderful motives for what you do, but if what you do harms other people, you're fooling yourself.

There's no way to know the motives of another person totally, even a person that you know very well.

People instinctively know the difference between something done with a profit motive and something done with a love motive.

The human mind has infinite capacity to rationalize, and evil characters just push that boundary a bit. Whatever they're doing, they think it makes sense to do it, and they think they have a good reason to do it. In short, they feel justified.