Kerry Greenwood Quotes

She had always found platypuses irresistible proof that God likes a joke as much as anyone else. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Robinson had long mastered the art of coming instantly awake, a skill which had proved invaluable when his children were young. He could be out of his bed, supplying nutriment, water, or a story, before his wife turned over in her sleep. He attributed his long and happy marriage to the fact that unlike most mothers, his wife got to sleep through the night when he was at home. ~ Kerry Greenwood

As a child, I would demand that visitors to our house tell me a story. I was intensely interested in everything - still am. ~ Kerry Greenwood

They are not aesthetic like a puppy or a kitten. In fact, they always look drunk to me. Look at that one - you'd swear he had been hitting the gin. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Oh wondrous,' murmured Lin Chung. 'Oh, water, mistress of earth, valley spirit, eternal feminine!'
'Taoism again?' Phryne leaned close to hear what he was whispering.
'From the "Tao Te Ching." The old Master should have seen this. All made by water, the female, cold, moon principle.'
'Yin,' said Phryne. 'This is the womb of the earth.'
'Indeed.' He took her hand. 'Completely foreign to all male, hot, sun creatures.'
'Like you?'
'Like me. Yang can only admire and tremble.'
'Come along.' She led him into the centre of the huge space. 'We don't want to get lost in the earthmother's insides. ~ Kerry Greenwood

You've been making a regular habit of flinging yourself in front of bullets," she remarked amiably. "It's really not a good custom. Curb this tendency to self-immolation. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I went to a basic school, which had children from all corners of the world, and met my best friend and had to learn Greek because she didn't speak English. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Sometimes it's hard to start, but once it gets going, once you reach the tipping point - usually between chapter seven and nine - then it's like hanging onto a large snowball as it hurtles downhill. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I don't think the process of writing books is in any way sensible. It's not logical, and it's not reasonable. I do write very fast, and I just do it in a binge. Other people binge-drink; I binge-write. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Her heart was beating appreciably faster, and she took more rapid breaths, but she was enjoying herself. Adventuresses are born, not made. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Don't be silly, Phryne, I'm an - ' 'Invert?' said Phryne. 'Of course you are.' She said this as though he had just claimed to have blue eyes, as something utterly ordinary. 'And that means,' John persisted, 'that I am a sinner.' 'Rubbish,' said Phryne sharply. 'No one can help whom they love. I am positive that your God doesn't care a fig. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Unanswered questions make my head itch. ~ Kerry Greenwood

The first Goddess, Gaia, who was the earth, wide hipped, big bellied, the womb of the human race, the nurturing breast of all humans, the opulent and voracious beginning of all things female. ~ Kerry Greenwood

This is what 'forever' means, my dear. You don't walk into danger on your own. Not anymore. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I believe in absolutely nothing except yeast and the inevitability of politicians. ~ Kerry Greenwood

The stories from World War I are worse than anything I have ever read. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I got out of difficult situations when many of my classmates didn't because I was smart, and I was lucky, and my parents were amazingly literate and helpful. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I was determined to become a criminal lawyer and help look after the poor. ~ Kerry Greenwood

And they need not cause you grief. As my Highland grandmother said - and she had the Sight - "Tis not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living!" And she was a wise woman. The dead are beyond your help or mine, poor things. But the living need us. Thirty souls at the least, Phryne, are still on that island to praise God who might now be angels - or devils. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Phryne was feeling most displeased with a species to which, she reminded herself, she belonged. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Now we will all die. What a pity. I haven't done half the wicked things I wanted to do, and the ones I have done I haven't done anything like enough. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Both had suggestive bulges in their pockets which told of either huge genitalia or trousered pistols. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Tinker wrote neatly, though his spelling was not good, Ruth's recipes would never fail for confusion between 'add sugar' and 'seethe', but Jane's writing looked like an intoxicated inky spider had staggered across the page on the way to the bar for another drink. Which it really didn't need. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Had she been at all used to blushing, she would have blushed, but she wasn't, so she didn't. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I used to tell my three younger siblings stories because that was my household chore, and I told long stories in installments because it was easier and more fun than making up a new story every night. I loved it. ~ Kerry Greenwood

In the 1970s, I used to buy opals and moonstones at the Queen Victoria Market, which were seen as old-fashioned and too heavy at the time. ~ Kerry Greenwood

It's always good business practice to eliminate any potential avengers. ~ Kerry Greenwood

It took determination to be really strange. That, or absinthe before breakfast every day. ~ Kerry Greenwood

First, a bath. I'm feeling soiled. Too much contact with cold reality, I think. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I didn't want to write a grown-up account of Gallipoli. I wanted to find out what would happen if I looked at Gallipoli through the eyes of an innocent. ~ Kerry Greenwood

She restored herself with a cocktail and an excellent lobster mayonnaise. Phryne was devoted to lobster mayonnaise, with cucumbers. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Ruth did not approve of young men. So noisy. ~ Kerry Greenwood

He looked like a kobold who had just been told that he was mythical. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Good morning, Meroe,' I said, dusting uselessly at my tracksuit pants. 'Might I interest you in today's special, pre-floured kitten? ~ Kerry Greenwood

My own view is that everyone works too hard and too long and they ought to get out more. There isn't time in their improverished lives to do anything creative, or even to just sit and stare, one of my favourite occupations. And how the wired-in young - never without their music, never out of touch because of mobile phones, constantly sharing everything, even pictures - are going to cope if they ever encounter solitude and silence is another thing. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Phryne was getting out of the car. Dot closed her eyes. Miss Fisher was about to happen to someone again. ~ Kerry Greenwood

They had known that it would happen. Yet they had not prevented it. Their world had been overused, abused, their forests logged, their precious fossil fuels wasted, their rich obscenely wealthy, their poor reduced to beggary. They had been powerful enough to put up the satellites, they had plated the landscape with their roads, crisscrossed it with their machines. And now where were they? ~ Kerry Greenwood

I have a theory that kitchens, once they reach a certain level of complexity, attract new gadgets into their orbit, like planets. Only this can account for the fact that I own two melon ballers. ~ Kerry Greenwood

One invited artists to social events, but only for the pleasure of their company. To invite singers or dancers to perform for their supper was inexpressively vulgar, and deserved a prompt and stinging rebuke. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I think it is rather heroic to go into a war zone where everyone is trying to kill you, and you have no way of shooting back. ~ Kerry Greenwood

She smiled brightly on Mrs. West. "Who's your dressmaker, Mrs. West?" she asked, with a view to avoiding the woman all costs. Such extremes of fashion as the purple shift dress which Mrs. West was almost wearing was not for Phryne. She preferred her personality to supply the outrageous edge to her appearance, not her exposed bosom. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Money can't buy happiness but it can vastly improve the quality of your misery. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I hate clocks. They tick. Other things make noises in their time and need, but clocks mechanically beat the seconds to death. ~ Kerry Greenwood

If you repose your trust in anything, Mr. Collins, you can rely on her. She may whisk you in the night as on a broom and frighten the wits out of you, but what she swears to do, she will do. And she is very fond of her maid. ~ Kerry Greenwood

A young man in one's hotel bedroom is capable of being explained, but a corpse is always a hindrance. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Come to the jacaranda tree at seven o'clock and you will hear something to your advantage. Destroy this note.'
No signature, no clue to the identity. Just what sort of heroine do you think I am? Phryne asked the air. Only a Gothic novel protagonist would receive that and say, 'Goodness, let me just slip into a low-cut white nightie and put on the highest heeled shoes I can find,' and, pausing only to burn the note, slip out of the hotel by a back exit and go forth to meet her doom in the den of the monster - to be rescued in the nick of time by the strong-jawed hero (he of the Byronic profile and the muscles rippling beneath the torn shirt). 'Oh, my dear,' Phryne spoke aloud as if to the letter-writer. 'You don't know a lot about me, do you? ~ Kerry Greenwood

If I ever saw my muse she would be an old woman with a tight bun and spectacles poking me in the middle of the back and growling, Wake up and write the book! ~ Kerry Greenwood

With all the sweetness of a chocolate-coated razor-blade. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Her reason might have collapsed by now, of course, nothing like a few days of people telling you that you are mad and deluded when you know that you are telling the truth to turn the brain. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living! ~ Kerry Greenwood

She was always over the horizon, chasing stars. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I don't like the idea of being killed by fools. I shall have to ensure that this does not happen. ~ Kerry Greenwood

It was always easier to genuinely praise than to try and find something nice to say about rubbish. ~ Kerry Greenwood

We learn love from the people who love us. ~ Kerry Greenwood

women as a sex and particularly ~ Kerry Greenwood

Her Beretta was holstered in her garter worn high on her thigh, under the shapeless blue dress. She had donned shoes in which she could run. The high heels had done their work and could be presented to the poor, assuming that they wanted to court a broken ankle along with their other problems. Along her forearm, covered by the loose sleeve, her throwing knife was strapped. Phryne, as a helpless victim, was a complete failure. ~ Kerry Greenwood

The Albion was a spacious pub, built in the days when a public house with any pretensions to gentility had to have fourteen foot ceilings, brass taps and a polished wooden bar you skate down ... Bert, in his reflective moments, considered that if heaven didn't have a well-appointed pub where a man could sit down over a beer for a yarn with the other angels, then he didn't want to go there. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I liked the Ballarat train as a child. ~ Kerry Greenwood

She dropped on his chest with both knees and vengefully banged his head on the floor, once to knock him out and twice because it made her feel better. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Even the reeking dark in the lion's cage seemed precious and infinitely preferable to whatever lay beyond. She would go out like the flame of a candle. Where does the candle flame go when the candle is blown out?
She laid her painted face against the iron bars and bared her teeth at death. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I always like cases when the victim's been practically begging to be killed. It means I don't have to be sorry for him. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Conversation is a minefield until you learn the conventions, Jane dear.'
'I'll never learn all the rules,' muttered Jane.
'Yes, you will,' said Phryne. 'Then you can bend them. The best advice I would give you is, "If under attack, cause a diversion".'
'A diversion?'
'Yes, trip over the dog, spill a glass of wine on your attacker, burst into song, challenge your attacker to a duel. And the angrier you get, the lower your voice should be. Never shout unless you are shouting "Fire! ~ Kerry Greenwood

No cook can ignore the opinion of a man who asks for three helpings. One is politeness, two is hunger, but three is a true and cherished compliment. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Phryne read a detective story, frequently going back because she suddenly found herself reading a conversation between two characters she had not met before - ~ Kerry Greenwood

Her face was white, her eyes blazed like emeralds, and no one who saw her had any intention of saying anything but 'Immediately' to anything she ordered. ~ Kerry Greenwood

The Colonel was far too firmly married and full of military honours to be a threat to Phryne's virtue, or what remained of it, so she agreed. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I remind my American readers that biscuits in England and Australia are crispy flat things such as you call cookies, and the soft doughy things you call biscuits are what we call scones. And they say we speak the same language ... ~ Kerry Greenwood

Dot had discovered in herself a keen interest in diligent research of nice calm paper records, which never wept or ran away or turned nasty. ~ Kerry Greenwood

If you are not scared then there is no merit in being brave. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see? Coming for to carry me home A band of Angels coming after me Coming for to carry me home. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Truth came home one day, naked and wounded, having been beaten and cursed by the people who did not wish to hear, while his brother Falsehood went dressed in the brightest garments and feasted with every household.
"What shall I do?" cried Truth to the gods. "No man wishes to hear me and all beat me and throw things at me; look, I am covered with dung."
"You are naked" said the goddess Maat, sympathetically. "No naked one can command respect. Therefore take these robes and you will walk without fear and all men will sit at your feet to hear your stories." And she dressed Truth in Fable's garments, and he was welcome at every house. ~ Kerry Greenwood

His dad had always told him that the red-faced were blusterers, not to be taken seriously. 'But if you see a bloke who's pale and shaking, son,' Bert's father had instructed, 'then run like blazes, because he might flamin' kill you. ~ Kerry Greenwood

She wondered, briefly, if she was beautiful, decided she was and blew a kiss to her reflection ~ Kerry Greenwood

To Hell with all racialists,' she said aloud. 'And to Hell with eugenics, degenerate heredity, miscegenation and frauds who pile up skulls like a conqueror as well. May they choke on their bones.' A passing gentleman boggled at her and crossed to the other side of La Trobe Street. 'There is no place for them in the Kingdom of Heaven,' she added, rolling the phrase over her tongue and filing it for future reference. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I decided that if I want to write about a female hero in the 1920s, I'm going to have to give her all the advantages I can because she has serious disadvantages in being a woman. I wasn't going to have her cowed or overawed by class, so she had to be titled. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I have to write three books a year to make a reasonable living out of writing - unless, of course, she gets a major American film deal. Phryne has been optioned since the very first book, but to make a historical TV movie, it costs $30,000 a day extra for the historical detail to be correct, so most people aren't doing it. ~ Kerry Greenwood

My work is very carefully researched. Sometimes I have to ditch an idea because I can't prove it. ~ Kerry Greenwood

He'd pull a door off its hinges rather than work out how to turn a key. ~ Kerry Greenwood

1/2 cup plain flour 1 cup caster sugar 3/4 cup desiccated coconut 4 eggs vanilla 125 g butter, melted 1/2 cup flaked almonds 1 cup milk Grease a deep pie dish and preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Put all the ingredients except half the almonds and the milk in a bowl and mix well, then add the milk slowly and beat until you get a cake batter. Pour it into the pie dish, top with the with rest of the almonds. Bake for about 35 minutes. It miraculously turns itself into a spongy sort of layered coconut cake, lovely with stewed fruit and cream. ~ Kerry Greenwood

This was cheering. The real world was still there, it still contained puppies being puppies and cats being cats. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Miss? Miss Phryne? Are you all right?' 'Come in, Dot. I'm fine. Some son of unmarried parents just tried to kidnap me.' 'What did you do with the body, Miss? ~ Kerry Greenwood

Piracy is a lot of fun; you should try it. ~ Kerry Greenwood

When I first started writing the books in the 1980s, all of the female detectives were flawed in some way because they were based on noir characters. ~ Kerry Greenwood

All this display, while the working classes were pinched beyond bearing; it was not wise, or tasteful: it smacked of ostentatious wealth. The Europe from which Phryne had lately come was impoverished, even the nobility; and was keeping its head down, still shocked by the Russian revolution. It had become fashionable to make no display; understatement had become most stylish. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Phryne looked at a large statue of St. Joseph, for whom she had always had an admiration. It can't have been easy, managing a girl with an inexplicable pregnancy. But he had accepted the word of the Lord and not put her away. Later generations had not been so forgiving. ~ Kerry Greenwood

Lust was a reliable emotion, but greed was altogether simpler to satisfy and you got to keep your clothes on. ~ Kerry Greenwood

She looked as plump and self-confident as the city pigeons outside, and as sure of her place. ~ Kerry Greenwood

One can look at a plumber, a labourer, and say without a great sense of irony, 'He is a man, capable of the same heroism as Admiral Nelson or Saint Francis of Assisi.' But no one looks at a woman and says, 'She is a woman, she is capable of the same heroism as Lady Godiva or Anne Askew.' Our heroines are separated from us. So instead of trying to make Man accept us as daughters of heroism, we must raise all women to the level of heroines. ~ Kerry Greenwood

One only has a few fragrant nights of spring. Store your memories for when you are old. You will enjoy them again under such a moon as this. ~ Kerry Greenwood

I knew that there were several, among African-American leaders, who had been put out by me because of my failure or reluctance to endorse Sen. Kerry. ~ Rodney Alexander

But even then, even all those years when she was never physically by herself, she was beginning to feel the chasm growing between her and the rest of the world. It was like a small tear in the seam of a dress, a certain pulling away. A ripping. And once it started, there was no stopping it. Of course, she tried so hard to keep it together, to tether herself to this world. She filled her life with people. With friends and family. But even then she knew that mere presence of people in one's life cannot eliminate the terrifying sense of one's aloneness in the world. Being surrounded by people is not the same as connection. As friendship. As love. When Robert came along, she believed for a little while she had found the answer, the bridge that crossed the deep canyon. And children too became links between herself and normalcy. The accident didn't start it, it just proved the faultiness, the tenuousness of these connections. ~ T. Greenwood

This is so weird. I saw the new John Kerry campaign commercial and he says, 'I'm John Kerry and I approve of this message - if I have one.' ~ Craig Kilborn

Values spoken without actions taken are merely slogans. ~ John F. Kerry

I love you, Wavy. I love you." I said it until she relaxed. "Now put your ring back on. ~ Bryn Greenwood

It's hard to think of anything that is more socially beneficial than raising children well. It needs to be valued and respected, I believe by everyone in public life regardless of your political party. ~ Kerry Healey

He fries my brain!" I cry in frustration.
"Well, maybe you fry his too! ~ Kerry Heavens

As the daughter of a schoolteacher, I feel very strongly that the most important thing in school takes place right there in that classroom, and the interaction between the teacher and the child. ~ Kerry Healey

Coltrane would do what you'd get a Roland Pro Tools module to do but with a group of jazz musicians. ~ Colin Greenwood

I didn't grow up thinking I was pretty; there was always a prettier girl than me. So I learned to be smart and tried to be funny and develop the inside of me, because I felt like that's what I had. ~ Kerry Washington

You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests! ~ John F. Kerry