Ngaio Marsh

“I always make a point of keeping the most pleasant-sounding name for the murderer. As he or she is bound to come to an unpleasant end, it seems the very least the author can do.”

“What does 'Ngaio' mean? I don't know. Like many Maori words, it has a number of meanings - clever, light on the water, a little bug - but I don't know which my parents had in mind.”

“Please don't entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about their jobs; how they never sit down to their work without a sigh of distress and never get up from it witout a sigh of relief. Do you imagine that your Muse is forever flamelike -- breathing the inspired word, the wonderful situation, the superb solution into your attentive ear? ... Believe me, my poor boy, if you wait for inspiration in our set-up, you'll wait for ever.”

“If you don't write about what you know, you're like a barrister and have to do a frightful amount of research for each case.”

“I acquired quite a lot of technical skill and got quite a long way with my painting, but I never felt I was doing what New Zealand was about with my paint.”

“I always, by an involuntary act of defensiveness, return to my everyday self: so, I find, have I withdrawn from writing about experiences which have most closely concerned and disturbed me. I have been deflected by my own reticence.”

“Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.”

“Why do you want to become an author? I will accept only one answer. If it is because you feel you can write better than you can do anything else then go ahead and do it without frills and flourishes. Stick to your present job and write in your spare time: but do it as if it is a whole time job.”

“We do not wait for inspiration. We work because we've jolly well got to. But when all is said and done, we toil at this particular job because it's turned out to be our particular job, and in a weird sort of way I suppose we may be said to like it.”

“You must be able to write. You must have a sense of form, of pattern, of design. You must have a respect for and a mastery over words.”

“Had I guessed the trouble my name was going to cause a lot of people on the other side of the world, I would have changed it to something easier when I began writing books.”