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All Quotes by author - Kerry Greenwood
" A publisher saw one of my historical novels and thought I would write an admirable detective story, so she offered me a two-book contract, and I grabbed it. "
Thought
Detective
She
" As a child, I would demand that visitors to our house tell me a story. I was intensely interested in everything - still am. "
Child
Me
House
" Clothes were terribly important in the '20s. They really were an arbiter of who you were and how much money you had: an indicator of social status. "
Clothes
Important
Money
" I decided that if I want to write about a female hero in the 1920s, I'm going to have to give her all the advantages I can because she has serious disadvantages in being a woman. I wasn't going to have her cowed or overawed by class, so she had to be titled. "
Hero
Woman
She
" I didn't want to write a grown-up account of Gallipoli. I wanted to find out what would happen if I looked at Gallipoli through the eyes of an innocent. "
Innocent
Find
Eyes
" I don't steal stories. If I'm a plagiarist, so is Hitchcock. And Tolkien. And Shakespeare. "
Hitchcock
Shakespeare
Stories
" I don't think the process of writing books is in any way sensible. It's not logical, and it's not reasonable. I do write very fast, and I just do it in a binge. Other people binge-drink; I binge-write. "
Process
Think
People
" I fell in love with words in all languages, and I read everything I could find, particularly myths and legends and histories and archeology and any novels. "
Words
Love
Legends
" If you look at the map, there's Thrace, Greece, Bulgaria, and there's tiny Gallipoli. It is such a small part of the whole peninsula, and yet you only hear about this little tiny bit. "
Only
You
Small
" I got out of difficult situations when many of my classmates didn't because I was smart, and I was lucky, and my parents were amazingly literate and helpful. "
Classmates
Got
Lucky
" I have been reading crime books ever since I was a child, but I had never tried to write one. "
Never
Books
Child
" I have to write three books a year to make a reasonable living out of writing - unless, of course, she gets a major American film deal. Phryne has been optioned since the very first book, but to make a historical TV movie, it costs $30,000 a day extra for the historical detail to be correct, so most people aren't doing it. "
Writing
Day
People
" I liked the Ballarat train as a child. "
Liked
Child
Train
" I like writing books. I really love words. I love to read. "
Like
Writing
Books
" I'm a duty solicitor, so I can't fix someone's life; all I can do is fix the problem I've got in front of my eyes. "
Life
Eyes
Fix
" In the 1970s, I used to buy opals and moonstones at the Queen Victoria Market, which were seen as old-fashioned and too heavy at the time. "
Seen
Time
Queen
" I remember talking to John Mortimer, and he said he was relying on Rumpole to keep him in his old age; well, I'm doing the same with Phryne - she's my mainstay. "
Age
Said
She
" I research every possible bit of information I can find. Then I use about a tenth of it. But I have to know all the information first; otherwise, I'm not going to convince myself, and if I can't convince myself, then I'm not going to convince the reader. "
Research
Myself
Information
" I think it is rather heroic to go into a war zone where everyone is trying to kill you, and you have no way of shooting back. "
Way
Think
Trying
" I used to tell my three younger siblings stories because that was my household chore, and I told long stories in installments because it was easier and more fun than making up a new story every night. I loved it. "
Long
Fun
Loved
" I've always been in love with Melbourne. When I was 12, I was taken into the city by my grandmother to go to the ballet for the first time. "
Time
Always
City
" I was determined to become a criminal lawyer and help look after the poor. "
Help
Look
After
" I went to a basic school, which had children from all corners of the world, and met my best friend and had to learn Greek because she didn't speak English. "
Best
Children
She
" Most detective story readers are an educated audience and know there are only a certain number of plots. The interest lies in what the writer does with them. "
Know
Number
Story
" My work is very carefully researched. Sometimes I have to ditch an idea because I can't prove it. "
Because
Sometimes
Idea
" Sometimes it's hard to start, but once it gets going, once you reach the tipping point - usually between chapter seven and nine - then it's like hanging onto a large snowball as it hurtles downhill. "
Reach
Chapter
You
" There are only so many stories in the world... Duplication of plots is bound to happen because most writers have read very extensively in their genre and have become aware they are adding an extra layer to the meta-narrative, finding a new spin on the original. "
World
Finding
Become
" There's something magical about the idea that you can write something down and someone else can read it. I'm still mildly agog about that. "
Magical
Write
You
" The stories from World War I are worse than anything I have ever read. "
World War I
War
Worse
" Unanswered questions make my head itch. "
Questions
Make
Head
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