30+ Denise Mina Quotes (Mysterious, Gritty And Suspenseful)

Denise Mina is a Scottish crime writer who has written several books, including the Garnethill trilogy, the Paddy Meehan series, and the Alex Morrow series. She has won numerous awards, including the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Mina has also written for television, including an adaptation of her novel The Field of Blood.

Top 10 Denise Mina Quotes

1. People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.
2. To have a very strong opinion all the time is corrosive to a person's intellect. It becomes your default position.
3. I think graphic novels are closer to prose than film, which is a really different form.
4. There's a real emphasis on being witty in Scotland, even in crime novels.
5. I think the negative traits are what makes us love other human beings, the foibles and the flaws.
6. 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.
7. Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve.
8. 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.
9. Usually when I'm trying to establish character, I try and find out where they live.
10. I just got an honorary degree from Glasgow University, and I had to wear around very painful shoes so that I didn't laugh all the way through the ceremony because I felt like an outlaw.

Denise Mina Short Quotes

• None of us know what is going to sell or what people want to read.
• I'm terrified to get married. I'm not getting married till my gay friends can.
• I grew up in London under Thatcher and that really was disgusting. A feeding frenzy.
• In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.
• Journalism is a Darwinian process.

Denise Mina Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

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

I hate it when I'm reading a comic, and the dialogue looks like stickers stuck on top to explain what's going on. For me the best is when your eye goes in a certain point and moves through the composition and then springs out on the dialogue, or gets confused in the image and then goes to the dialogue for an explanation. — Denise Mina

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

A man who thinks he has a higher purpose can do terrible things, even to those he professes to love. — Denise Mina

I came from this very traditional background and I benefited hugely from feminism. I felt privileged going to university and doing a PhD. Most people of my background don't get to do that. — Denise Mina

In prose, leaps of logic can be made while the protagonist thinks about things and arrives at conclusions. Even with voiceover, there's no real way of having an inner voice without it taking over the entire story. — Denise Mina

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

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

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

Because I write a book a year, I always want to do one other project every year that's stimulating in a different way. It means you can be working but not using up your prose juice, you know? — Denise Mina

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

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

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

Life Lessons by Denise Mina

1. Denise Mina's work teaches us the importance of understanding the complexities of crime and the motivations of those who commit it.
2. Her stories often explore the psychological and moral implications of criminal acts, showing us that there is often more to a crime than meets the eye.
3. Through her work, we can learn to think more deeply about the causes of crime and the effects it has on individuals and society.