Crime Fiction Quotes

• The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers

  Jacques Barzun

  Fiction, May, Crime

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• Crime fiction makes money. It may be harder for writers to get published, but crime is doing better than most of what we like to call CanLit. It's elementary, plot-driven, character-rich story-telling at its best.

  Linwood Barclay

  Character, Plot, Fiction

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• Crime fiction confirms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehensible, and moral universe.

  P. D. James

  Fiction, Belief, Moral

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• Most crime fiction, no matter how 'hard-boiled' or bloodily forensic, is essentially sentimental, for most crime writers are disappointed romantics.

  John Banville

  Fiction, Matter, Sentimental

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• Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve.

  Denise Mina

  Fiction, Crime, Social

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• Scandinavian crime fiction has become a great success all across the world and rightfully so. Sjowall and Wahloo ushered in a whole generation of Swedish crime writers, many of whom are now available in English.

  Camilla Lackberg

  Generations, Fiction, World

  "Camilla Läckberg's top 10 Swedish crime novels" by Camilla Läckberg, www.theguardian.com. March 12, 2009.

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• People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

  Denise Mina

  Reading, Murder Mysteries, People

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• The crime fiction genre offers the writer infinite diversity of theme and treatment.

  Stanley Ellin

  Diversity, Fiction, Infinite

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• And there are rules for crime fiction. Or if not rules, at least expectations and you have to give the audience what it wants.

  Tod Goldberg

  Giving, Expectations, Fiction

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I was digging for stuff in a used bookstore, and I came upon 'Little Sister.' I fell in love with Chandler that night. I fell right down the rabbit hole of crime fiction.

  Robert Crais

  Night, Little Sister, Rabbits

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• I grew up reading crime fiction mysteries, true crime - a lot of true crime - and it is traditionally a male dominated field from the outside, but from the inside what we know, those of us who read it, is that women buy the most crime fiction, they are by far the biggest readers of true crime, and there's a voracious appetite among women for these stories, and I know I feel it - since I was quite small I wanted to go to those dark places.

  Megan Abbott

  Reading, Dark, Fiction

  "The 'Girl' In The Title: More Than A Marketing Trend". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. February 22, 2016.

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• I grew up reading crime fiction and, especially in the '80s, women were just there to be saved or screwed.

  Karin Slaughter

  Reading, Fiction, Crime

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• The mainstream has lost its way. Crime fiction is an objective, realistic genre because it's about the real world, real bodies really being killed by somebody. And this involves the investigator in trying to understand the society that the person lived in.

  Michael Dibdin

  Real, Trying, Fiction

  FaceBook post by Michael Dibdin from Nov 27, 2011

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• One of the surprising things I hadn't expected when I decided to write crime fiction is how much you are expected to be out in front of the public. Some writers aren't comfortable with that. I don't have a problem with that.

  Kathy Reichs

  Writing, Fiction, Problem

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• I was reading Raymond Chandler very much with the feminist eye. In six of his seven novels, it's the woman who presents herself in a sexual way, who is the main bad person. And then you start reading more fiction, whether crime fiction or straight fiction, it's just bad girls trying to make good boys do bad things, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. The woman that thou gavest me made me do it, Adam says to God.

  Sara Paretsky

  Girl, Reading, Eye

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• The most popular American fiction seems to be about successful people who win, and good crime fiction typically does not explore that world. But honestly, if all crime fiction was quality fiction, it would be taken more seriously.

  George Pelecanos

  Taken, Successful, Winning

  Interview with Keith Phipps, www.avclub.com. September 19, 2001.

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• I think I'm out of crime fiction now, and I think the dividing line is American Tabloid.

  James Ellroy

  Thinking, Fiction, Tabloids

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview by John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

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• For a long time, I missed being in the courtroom every day. I missed trial work. It was so much a part of my life. It was what I did and who I was. But over the years I did find the opportunity to realize my childhood dream of writing crime fiction.

  Marcia Clark

  Dream, Writing, Opportunity

  Source: thecelebritycafe.com

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• I'm sold as a literary writer in Holland; I'm sold as crime fiction in England. I think of it as just literature.

  Karin Slaughter

  Thinking, Fiction, Literature

  Source: content.time.com

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• Steve Mosby has become one of a handful of writers who make me excited about crime fiction.

  Val McDermid

  Fiction, Excited, Crime

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• Reading Tomato Red-the first Daniel Woodrell novel I came upon-was a transformative experience. It expanded my sense of the possibilities not only of crime fiction, but of fiction itself-of language, of storytelling. Time and again, his work just dazzles and humbles me. God bless Busted Flush for these glorious reissues. It's a service to readers everywhere, and a great gift.

  Megan Abbott

  Reading, Tomatoes, Fiction

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• A lot of crime fiction writing is also lazy. Personality is supposed to be shown by the protagonists taste in music, or were told that the hero looks like the young Cary Grant. Film is the medium these writers are looking for.

  Peter Temple

  Hero, Writing, Personality

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• I've read crime fiction all my life. A thing that's bothered me about crime fiction is that it's generally about one or two people, but there's not much about society. I want to get away from that particular pattern: a lead, a supporting role and backdrop characters.

  Steig Larsson

  Character, Two, People

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• 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

  Feet, Fiction, Crime

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• The built-in form is a window frame. You can use this genre [crime fiction] to go where you want to go, and explore what you want to explore. In some ways it gives you a lot of freedom because you have a framework readers are looking for.

  Michael Connelly

  Giving, Fiction, Use

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