Quotes from Martha Grimes

Maud (like my mother) thought food did a lot more than just fill you up.

In my mind I heard Father Freeman, his head bowed, announcing the punishment 'Say ten Hail Marys and go to the Hotel Paradise every summer for the remainder of your life.

He wondered if silence gathered in some places: a wood in deep winter; a dock where a boat moored in still water; an abandoned farmhouse. The world at large was against silence, which made it all the more restful and the more necessary when one came upon it.

Having little to do with the present, Mr. Beaton had plenty of room for the past. Oh, yes, he read the papers and knew that governments came and went (Conservative, Labor, Sociopath, Mr. Beaton would chuckle), but that made no odds to him.

Steptoe continued: "Yes, I had a very tasty dish of flageolet

Melrose sipped his tea and ate his bun in perfect peace. How wonderful! Solitude even at Ardry End was hard to come by. Perhaps he was fit for the life of a hermit. Give up all of his worldly possessions and go live in a hut on a shelf of rock and watch the sunrise every morning. Up before the sun! What a dreadful idea; he shuddered.

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.

Children can ask what adults don't dare to because we don't want to admit we're scared and we don't really want to hear the answers.

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

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.

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.

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.

My black cat was named Blackie.

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.

The England I write about doesn't strike me as the real one.

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.

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.

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.

Before you hate something you should try to understand it.

An idyllic childhood is probably illusion.

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.

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do.

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.

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 )