Quotes from Denise Mina

Just when you think something can't get any worse someone who dislikes you comes to watch.

Don't go on holiday to Blackpool, it's fucking horrible there.

Julia saw the awe on my face. She recognised it. She pouted and graced me with a small, wry smile, then dropped her eyes and turned away as if to say, yes, here I am. I am a peerless pearl who has fallen from her setting. I have rolled into the dust under a couch and been forgotten. But, if you can see past the dust and the gloom, you will see that I am still a pearl.

The eternal companions of all clever women are mistrust and scorn.

Grief is a scar. The tissue is tough and when it's cut again, it heals poorly.

I often said the wrong thing–wake up, shut up, grow up. These are the wrong things to say when people are sad about some minor cruelty or sentimental incident.

There is a warmth and a comfort in hearing about people in worse situations than your own. Pity is a hollow virtue. I like it. It's a form of self-aggrandisement really, bigging yourself up by defining someone as below you. True-crime podcasts are usually great for that but sometimes you have to look really hard to find anyone down there.

it is 1958 and men don't really have words for feelings

His life had no meaning. It was intolerable. The last three decades had been a hollow waste of time. Hands

The real meaning of stories depends on where they're told, when and to whom.

Ah, the meek. Playing the long game. Sneaky bastards.

It was Lord of the Flies without table manners.

I said that one of the stories in the Arabian Nights is specifically about the urge to tell a story. It's primal, the need to tell. It's not about the listener but the storyteller. In some cultures, not telling your story is regarded as a sign of mental illness.

I want to kick Grandma in the penis

the house looked shoddy in comparison with its neighbors. It stood out in the elegant street of terraced houses like a meatball in caviar.

Lamont, like the judge?" He tipped his head in embarrassment and looked away quickly. She smiled kindly at him. The two great sources of shame: privilege and penury.

The door to Jackson's opens and a man staggers out. He crab-walks away from them, along the pavement until he hits a lamp post. He clings to it, waiting until his legs agree to listen to orders. Confident he has reached an entente cordiale with his knees, he straightens up, watching his rebel legs to see if the truce holds. It does, but only for standing. The moment he attempts a step he is swept around the corner like a trawlerman thrown from a deck in a storm.

Lovely thing about Adam, and why I loved him, was that he was kind to me when it mattered and he had seen a lot too. It's hard to be among vanilla bastards all the time. Normal people can get genuinely upset about a bad haircut, cross words, sick cats. It's hard not to roll your eyes and say the wrong thing.

I loved getting up before everyone else, when the house was still and I could read or listen to a podcast alone in a frozen world. I knew where everyone was. I knew they were safe. I could relax.

It's primal, the need to tell. It's not about the listener but the storyteller. In some cultures, not telling your story is regarded as a sign of mental illness.

When I first came here copyboys wouldn't have been allowed to eat in the canteen with journalists. A smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. I was a copyboy once, at the Lanarkshire Gazette . Can ye believe that? He left a space for her to respond, so she did. Can I believe that a man as important as you was ever a copyboy or that Lanarkshire has its own gazette?

Self-pity makes tyrants, it's the defining characteristic of brutal regimes

If you've ever had to run you know that stuff is just stuff. Even rich people can only stand in one room at a time.

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