Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I know the cadence of the language and the voice of Atlanta because I've lived here for so long.
My dad believed in scaring us as we were growing up. Scaring the boys who wanted to date us more.
Men are more particular, and they're not going to grab something with a bodice-ripper cover on it.
You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.
I think that characters who are nice all the time and who you sympathize with can get really boring.
With 'Pretty Girls,' I saw the opportunity to talk not just about crime but what crime leaves behind.
Every successful author I know faced crushing rejection early on, and they got back up and kept going.
Pushing the boundaries of polite society does not just fall under the purview of crime fiction authors.
I think some people are good at being alone, and some people aren't, and as a child, I really liked it.
Librarians have always stood up for writers and readers in every kind of community across this country.
Southerners have this love of embellishment. Even when you read a police report, there's some backstory.
Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation's sovereignty.
Prior to the Civil War, most libraries were either privately owned or housed in universities or churches.
When I was little, my grandmother would take me to church with her, and she would introduce me to people.
I grew up reading crime fiction and, especially in the '80s, women were just there to be saved or screwed.
Being a Southerner, Im interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.
[On men:] ... you never know what they're like until you get them home and take them out of their packages.
Ultimately, I'm in control of what's going on in the books, so I can back off, if it's scaring me too much.
If there is still an American dream, reading is one of the bootstraps by which we can all pull ourselves up.
My job isn't to preach to people, it's to entertain them. I like letting the characters speak for themselves.
Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest.
sexual predators were like cockroaches. For every one you saw, there were twenty more hiding behind the walls.
As a writer, I've always felt it's my job to be extremely careful when writing about victims, especially women.
Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.
Readers are very, very savvy, and I don't want to insult them by making them think I'm too lazy to get it right.
I'm sold as a literary writer in Holland; I'm sold as crime fiction in England. I think of it as just literature.
A lot of novels use crime as a stepping stone to talk about greater issues. So I just think of myself as a writer.
If you're going to write thrillers, you have to make a decision if you are going to be realistic or go off and over.
I've always been drawn to dark stories. I enjoy reading Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Highsmith, and Margaret Mitchell.
No crime lab in the world looks like the 'CSI' ones because there's simply not the money for all those fancy machines.
People don't just love mysteries. They are obsessed with them - especially the kind that are never definitively solved.
We make assumptions: nurses should be nice, teachers should be good. But everyone has a dark side, some darker than others.
The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'
I grew up reading thrillers. Honestly, I was always drawn to the very detailed ones like Patricia Cornwell. I love details.
People just make stupid mistakes. And they keep making them and keep making them, and suddenly they can't dig themselves out.
If you're a smart guy, you should really try to find out what women are thinking. I mean, we are 51 percent of the population.
I think a lot of people are curious about what makes people do what they do, and I guess my curiosity isn't hidden in any way.
My sister lived in England for a while when I was 12, and I came to visit her, and I spent most of the time in her flat reading.
Though he was not a reader himself, my father understood that reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.
I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.
I have a superhero complex. If I see anything bad happen, I run towards it, rather idiotically because, after all, what could I do?
Don't try to follow in my footsteps. Make your own footsteps! No one else can tell the stories that are inside of you except for you.
Crafting a piece of gripping, narrative true crime that engages the world is not that different from crafting a piece of crime fiction.
When I was growing up, my stepmother's sister was the chief detective in one of the adjoining towns, so she piqued my interest in crime.
I always try to block out an hour or so a day to read. Being a writer is a job, and reading helps train my brain in the right direction.
People forget that writers start off being readers. We all love it when we find a terrific read, and we want to let people know about it.
It really sucks getting older. Sometimes I'll be walking along and I'll just glance over my shoulder to make sure nothing has fallen off.
Denise Mina is probably one of the most gifted writers out there, whether it's mystery or literary or whatever label you want to give it.
I love puns. I've been known to turn the car around just to take advantage of a good pun situation. It really is the highest form of humor.
Usually, when inspiration strikes late, the light of day reveals that I haven't gotten an idea for a book so much as a psychiatric case study.