Martha Grimes Quotes
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My black cat was named Blackie.
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I'm constantly battling writer's block; it usually takes me two hours to write anything.
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In Baltimore, I was walking with a friend who was playing at a pub he kept referring to as the Horse. But when I saw the sign 'The Horse You Came In On' - I thought, 'My God.' I had no intention of ever setting a Jury novel in the U.S., but when I saw that, I thought, 'That's it.' The names are very important.
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When you write the first book of a series, you do have to be careful what you put in because then you are stuck with it.
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The England I write about doesn't strike me as the real one.
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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.
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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.
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I have readers tell me that I must be bored, but that's not true. I am never bored with the characters. I like them.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I love stories. I just enjoy telling stories and watching what these characters do - although writing continues to be just as hard as it always was.
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There are people who read Tolstoy or Dostoevski who do not insist that their endings be happy or pleasant or, at least, not be depressing. But if you're writing mysteries - oh, no, you can't have an ending like that. It must be tidy.
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I do Q&As, not readings.