Denise Mina Quotes

Quotes about:

Books Crime Middle Class Reading Writing

To have a very strong opinion all the time is corrosive to a person's intellect. It becomes your default position.

Denise Mina

Strong, Opinion, Default

9 Copy quote
Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve.

Denise Mina

Fiction, Crime, Social

5 Copy quote
Crime is a very hard genre to feminise. If you have a female protagonist she is going to be looking after her mum when she gets older; she is going to be worried about her brother and sister; she will be making a living while bringing up kids.

Denise Mina

Brother, Kids, Female

"Murder she wrote - and plenty of it: Denise Mina on her career". Interview with Peter Guttridge, www.theguardian.com. July 28, 2007.

7 Copy quote
In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.

Denise Mina

Heart, Lucky, My Heart

6 Copy quote
I think the negative traits are what makes us love other human beings, the foibles and the flaws.

Denise Mina

Thinking, Negative, Flaws

6 Copy quote
None of us know what is going to sell or what people want to read.

Denise Mina

People, Want, Knows

5 Copy quote
Journalism is a Darwinian process.

Denise Mina

Journalism, Process

6 Copy quote
I'd read so much right-wing crime fiction where they find the evidence and shoot the bad guy - I thought there must be another approach.

Denise Mina

Wings, Guy, Fiction

"Murder she wrote - and plenty of it: Denise Mina on her career". Interview with Peter Guttridge, www.theguardian.com. July 28, 2007.

6 Copy quote
I respond very well to rules. If there are certain parameters it's much easier to do something really good. Especially when readers know what those are. They know what to expect and then you have to wrong-foot them. That is the trick of crime fiction. And readers come to crime and graphic novels wanting to be entertained, or disgusted.

Denise Mina

Feet, Fiction, Crime

6 Copy quote
In the 'Garnethill' trilogy, people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law, but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with accents.

Denise Mina

Art, Brother, Dad

9 Copy quote
I always wanted to work at Take A Break magazine, you know, just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote Garnethill because I didn't get that job!

Denise Mina

Jobs, Law, Degrees

6 Copy quote
People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

Denise Mina

Reading, Murder Mysteries, People

9 Copy quote
There's a real emphasis on being witty in Scotland, even in crime novels.

Denise Mina

Witty, Real, Crime Novels

5 Copy quote
I have two children. They are more fun than anything in the world, and it's more immediate fun than the hard slog of writing.

Denise Mina

Children, Fun, Writing

5 Copy quote
I love Mikhail Bulgakov. He is very original and takes the story to unexpected places. I didn't realise political writing could be so funny.

Denise Mina

Writing, Political, Stories

4 Copy quote
Most of the people who write to me are really clever, really engaged. They just want to say that they have read my book and liked it.

Denise Mina

Clever, Book, Writing

4 Copy quote
Usually when I'm trying to establish character, I try and find out where they live.

Denise Mina

Character, Trying

"Probing The Psyche Of Glasgow's Mean Streets". "Morning Edition" with Vicki Barker, www.npr.org. August 11, 2008.

5 Copy quote
There's always these giant baffling books, like 'The Da Vinci Code.' People say it's not as well written as 'Midnight's Children.' Why aren't people reading 'Midnight's Children?' Nobody knows why these phenomenons happen but they're great.

Denise Mina

Children, Book, Reading

4 Copy quote
I think graphic novels are closer to prose than film, which is a really different form.

Denise Mina

Thinking, Different, Film

"‘Dragon Tattoo’: Denise Mina on Larsson, feminist crime fiction". Interview with Noelene Clark, herocomplex.latimes.com. December 13, 2012.

7 Copy quote
I grew up in London under Thatcher and that really was disgusting. A feeding frenzy.

Denise Mina

London, Grew Up, Feeding

4 Copy quote
We don't really go in for big family dinners, but Scottish people are famously confrontational. It's a cultural thing, so maybe we don't need to have them to clear the air. Also, traditional family food isn't as nice here so there's no payoff for traveling hundreds of miles.

Denise Mina

Nice, Air, People

4 Copy quote
Even if people do wrong, we're social animals, so what can we do about stopping them doing the same things in future? Saying people are 'bad' or 'evil' is just an unwillingness to engage; an unwillingness to try to empathise. That sanctimonious attitude doesn't help anyone

Denise Mina

Attitude, Animal, People

13 Copy quote
A man who thinks he has a higher purpose can do terrible things, even to those he professes to love.

Denise Mina

Men, Thinking, Purpose

4 Copy quote
If you went for a job interview in a Glasgow law firm, they used to ask you what school you went to. And that was a way of finding out what religion you were.

Denise Mina

Jobs, School, Law

"Probing The Psyche Of Glasgow's Mean Streets". "Morning Edition" with Vicki Barker, www.npr.org. August 11, 2008.

5 Copy quote
My upbringing was middle-class but my parents' families were both working-class so I had this odd combination of working-class background but in a privileged position.

Denise Mina

Class, Parent, Odd

"Murder she wrote - and plenty of it: Denise Mina on her career". Interview with Peter Guttridge, www.theguardian.com. July 28, 2007.

4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Christopher Brookmyre

Peter May

Michael Morpurgo

William McIlvanney

Denise Mina

Follow

Born: 1966
Occupation: Crime writer
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics