Val McDermid Quotes

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Val McDermid

Profession : Writer

Birth : June 4, 1955

Sometimes fear is used as a way to control.

Val McDermid

We weren't dirt poor, but there was no spare money kicking around. While it was very much understood that the way to a better life was through education, books were a luxury we couldn't afford. But when I was six, we actually moved opposite the central library, and that became my home from home.

Val McDermid

The condition of rage is one in which I find myself starting my day - once I see the news headlines.

Val McDermid

There is still a funny notion that women should not write violent fiction.

Val McDermid

Walking by water frees your creativity. I don't know how it works - there's something about it that's liberating.

Val McDermid

I've never wanted to live in a ghetto or write in a ghetto. I want to write about a world that reflects the one most people live in. Gay people are just one aspect of that.

Val McDermid

I came from a working-class family, but I was supported by a grant system and had my fees paid, so I came out of Oxford with a debt of something like £200.

Val McDermid

I said to Ruth Rendell, 'When you've written as many books as you have, it's easier.' She said, 'No dear, it gets harder'.

Val McDermid

On one hand, you've got 'decent' men, and on the other you've got neanderthal misogynist bawbags - and the middle ground is what's disappearing.

Val McDermid

I was thinking things had changed: that the next generation of men weren't as institutionally misogynist as the previous were. And then, suddenly, the Internet came along and gave them a platform to voice their feelings anonymously. And boy, did the bile come out.

Val McDermid

I spent a lot of time at my grandparents in the school holidays, and the only books in the house were a copy of the Bible and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage.' I developed a taste for murder mysteries and then later discovered libraries, second-hand bookshops, and jumble sales.

Val McDermid

I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience.

Val McDermid

I did want to be Joni Mitchell for quite a long time.

Val McDermid

I'd like to be more spontaneous.

Val McDermid

I am the despair of my accountant; I am the plastic bags of receipts.

Val McDermid

I have a vernacular house on the seaside in Northumberland and an Edwardian semi in south Manchester. They're both exactly as big as they need to be. I can't be doing with an ostentatious, big house - you can only be in one room at a time.

Val McDermid

Growing up in Fife, you were aware that there were these creatures called lesbians, but it was in the realms of complete freakishness. And I didn't feel like a freak.

Val McDermid

The thing is that quite a few of my books have ended up as they are because of conversations I've had over the years with forensic scientists.

Val McDermid

One of the reasons we all still read Jane Austen is because her books are about universal things which still matter today - love, money, family. They haven't gone out of fashion, so it's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater to rework her in a contemporary style.

Val McDermid

I won't be attempting to write Jane Austen-style prose - that would be suicidal. But I will attempt to bring the highest level of my own prose, and to make it sparkle.

Val McDermid