Martha Grimes Quotes

Writers just kept on staring at nothing until they wrote something. Might be two minutes or two weeks.

Silence is a way of saying: we do not have to entertain each other; we are okay as we are.

Most people see what they want to, or at least what they expect to.

I do read P.D. James because she pays much more attention to character, to a particular atmosphere or setting. But most mystery writers, I think, are controlled by the plot.

If a cone had dropped on velvet needles, if a star had lain a silver track across the sky, if the dead had turned in their graves - I swear, I would have heard it, that's how silent it all was.

Writing is an antisocial act.

Arnold was a dog's dog. Whenever he shuffled along walks and through alleyways, he always gave the impression of being on to something big.

As he followed Wood, Jury thought: one disappearance, two auto accident victims, one in a mental institution, one drowned. One murdered. Rackmoor, for all its bracing sea air, didn't seem the healthiest place in the British Isles.

I'm constantly battling writer's block; it usually takes me two hours to write anything.

Old willows trailed veils of wet leaves across his path. Moss crawled up the headstones. The place was otherwise deserted.

The English inn stands permanently planted at the confluence of the roads of history, memory, and romance.

I'll see something or hear something. Sometimes, it can be a color. Or a piece of music. Or an image of some kind. I see something, and it has huge emotional weight, although I have no idea why.

I don't think I could have just kept writing the 'Richard Jury' books. It wasn't that I was bored or dissatisfied. I just had to write something else.

Elf made his way fuzzily back to the drawer, trying to think nasty thoughts about his tormentor (Mungo the dog) but he couldn't, as he was too little and his mind was formless and without messages.
( "Elf" the tiny kitten Mungo tormented )

Polly was a writer of many deadlines. There were the ignorable deadlines, the not-to-be-taken-too-seriously deadlines: the deadlines-before-the-deadlines deadlines, and finally, the no-kidding-around deadlines. She set these various dates, she'd told him, to fool herself.

My black cat was named Blackie.

Melrose was so concerned that the [book]shop might close for lack of business, that he had suggested he would like to invest in it or even become a silent partner. "You see, books have always been a hobby of mine." Books had never been a hobby; they were a necessity.

Talking's just a nervous habit.

I do Q&As, not readings.

Writing a mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has a certain framework that must be superimposed over the story.

Remember the great film with Bette Davis, All About Eve? There's a scene after the scheming Eve steals Margo's role through trickery & then gets this magnificent review. Margo of course is effing & blinding all over the place. And crying. Her director rushes into her house, puts his arms around her & says, "I ran all the way". That's what I want.

I don't have to hang around a pub, really, to get an idea. I usually visit it once, get the layout, the atmosphere, the feel of it.