Martin Cruz Smith Quotes

The research is the most interesting part… That’s how I work. I go some place and I walk it and I talk to people until I find what I’ve come for. Or not. Fortunately, I tend to find what I’m after.

High Concept means a book or a film whose core idea can be stated in a single sentence, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito are twins. Or, Arnold is pregnant.

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant.

Of course the biggest mafia in Russia has always been the government; in Soviet times, the Communist Party, and now a circle of former KGB and FSB.

Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.

To capture the human cost of fallen empire with all its horror and absurdity, Sheets offers the right combination: the political insight of a top reporter and the power of a novelist.

Then there was the whole concept of coal mining, which is a culture unto itself, the most dangerous occupation in the world, and which draws and develops a certain kind of man.

Kali is the goddess of destruction, the Clawed Hands, the Blood Drinker... And that's one side of her, as it is for any god. If you knew her for thousands of years you'd know she could be all colors. The sky is black at night, but if your eyes were good enough, they could see the different lights of a million stars. Death is part of her because death is part of life.

The most beautiful women in the world were African.

Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire.

Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.

It was like passing the scene of a highway accident and being relieved to learn that nobody had been seriously injured.

You have to be an outsider to write.

The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself.

As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.