Allan Massie Quotes

Today the crime novelist has one advantage denied to writers of 'straight' or 'literary' novels. Unlike them he can range over all levels of society, for crime can easily breach the barriers that exist in our stratified society. Because of these barriers the modern literary novel, unlike its 19th-century predecessors, is often confined to the horizontal, dealing only with one class. But crime runs through society from top to bottom, and so the crime novelist can present a fuller picture of the way we live now.

Allan Massie

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Quotes to Explore

• All performers get on stage because they need to feel love from an audience. I might appear confident, but those three seconds before I get out there, I'm a mess. But I have to take the risk; otherwise, I'd be miserable and would feel like I wasn't seeing through my personal destiny.

  

  Idina Menzel
  • Risk
  • Feel
  • Audience

• It's hard to have people talking about you and trashing you in the media and saying they think your career is over... and you are only 25.

  

  Tamra Davis
  • People
  • Career
  • Media

• I remember when people actually wore coats and ties to theatre every night. They don't anymore. It's very different.

  

  Harold Prince
  • People
  • Different
  • Remember

• Looking up and out, how can we not respect this ever-vigilant cognizance that distinguishes us: the capability to envision, to dream, and to invent? the ability to ponder ourselves? and be aware of our existence on the outer arm of a spiral galaxy in an immeasurable ocean of stars? Cognizance is our crest.

  

  Vanna Bonta
  • Up
  • Dream
  • Knowledge

• It's like you have a child and you think, 'Everything that I've done up until this point is insignificant in comparison to being a father.' It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

  

  Vin Diesel
  • Up
  • Done
  • Father

• I think if you talk to my colleagues, I was less than a fearsome individual.

  

  Karl Rove
  • Think
  • Talk
  • Colleagues

• There are so many different criteria for my collecting, and I have to confess that the goalposts do shift. But obviously, with my background, I am particularly drawn to things that have been documented in contemporary magazines.

  

  Hamish Bowles
  • Magazines
  • Collecting
  • Shift

• I know you can be up one minute and drop the next, so I'm trying to maintain a steady course so I can have some longevity.

  

  Orlando Bloom
  • Up
  • Trying
  • Know

• I just want to be part of great stories that are told and for them to be relevant.

  

  Zoe Saldana
  • Great
  • Want
  • Just

• I was afraid I would see someone from my past who thought I was this big athlete, and then I end up being just normal.

  

  Victor Cruz
  • Up
  • Past
  • Thought

• I have to expend an awful lot of energy actively undoing the impact of my name. Understandably, people assume that I have at least some connection to Iran. The truth is that I don't. I have very little knowledge about the culture, the language, the history. I've never been to Iran. I've never even been inside a mosque.

  

  Said Sayrafiezadeh
  • People
  • Truth
  • History

• We use the same possessive pronouns for everything, but do we own our lives or sisters or husbands in the same way we own our shoes? Do we own any of them at all?

  

  Samantha Harvey
  • Way
  • Shoes
  • Same

• I'm an Oscar nominee. I love saying that. Whatever happens, I'm going to sing that 'I'm an Oscar nominee' part.

  

  Octavia Spencer
  • Love
  • Happens
  • Saying

• Unless you work for '60 Minutes', your life is: You do stories about things, and nothing happens as a result.

  

  Ira Glass
  • Life
  • Work
  • You

• I'm in love with music, and I'm pregnant by it. It's like having twins. Or triplets. Or eight-lets!

  

  R. Kelly
  • Music
  • Love
  • Like

• I like children; I like 'em, and I respect 'em. Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by them.

  

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • World
  • Children
  • Done

• I actually think Bill Gates is conventionally smarter, even though it's a dumb word, but mental processing power - I've watched him use four different screens, process information, get to the right answer, boom boom boom.

  

  Walter Isaacson
  • Different
  • Power
  • Process

• There's definitely something transformative about clothes.

  

  Sam Taylor-Johnson
  • Something
  • Clothes

• Let’s say this together: 'Great me no greats', and leave this grading to posterity.

  

  Randall Jarrell
  • Great
  • Together

• Right after college, a buddy of mine was moving to Boulder for some summer program, and he was like, 'Come live with me.' And I figured, why not? I love Colorado.

  

  Matt Besser
  • Live
  • Why
  • College

• Compassion is loving others enough to say or do what is appropriate from an empowered heart without attachment to the outcome.

  

  Gary Zukav
  • Heart
  • Compassion
  • Loving

• Your man with a thin skin, a vehement ambition, a scrupulous conscience, and a sanguine desire for rapid improvement is never a happy, and seldom a fortunate politician.

  

  Anthony Trollope
  • Happy
  • Desire
  • Ambition

• Dealing with negative comments is part of this job, and I've had to develop a thick skin, though some days it's easier than others.

  

  Sara Sampaio
  • Job
  • Negative
  • Part

• Today the crime novelist has one advantage denied to writers of 'straight' or 'literary' novels. Unlike them he can range over all levels of society, for crime can easily breach the barriers that exist in our stratified society. Because of these barriers the modern literary novel, unlike its 19th-century predecessors, is often confined to the horizontal, dealing only with one class. But crime runs through society from top to bottom, and so the crime novelist can present a fuller picture of the way we live now.

  

  Allan Massie
  • Live
  • Today
  • Society