Best 18 quotes of Ngaio Marsh on MyQuotes

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

As usual she had a deceptive air of perspicacity.

Expectation is the springboard of achievement.

if you go through life looking for insults, you may be comfortably assured of finding them.

It is a curious thing that when one speaks from the heart it is invariably in the worst of taste.

No coffee is ever quite as good as it smells.

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.

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.

You may be able to write a novel, you may not. You will never know until you have worked very hard indeed and written at least part of it. You will never really know until you have written the whole of it and submitted it for publication.

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.

Beneath it hung a faded photograph in an Oxford frame. It presented a Victorian gentleman wearing an ineffable air of hauteur and a costume which suggested that he had begun to dress up as Mr. Sherlock Holmes but, suddenly losing interest, had gone out fishing instead.

By shifting his gaze slightly, he saw frame in the sitting room window, a landscape aloof from man. Its beauty was perfectly articulate yet utterly remote. Against his will he was moved by it as an unmusical listener may be profoundly disturbed by sound forms that he is unable to comprehend.

I tell you what,” said Troy more amiably. “I’ve always been frightened of the whole business. Love and so on.” “The physical side?” “Yes, that, but much more than that. The whole business. The breaking down of all one’s reserves. The mental as well as the physical intimacy.” “My mind to me a kingdom is.

My poor fat Alfie! He was not a romantic husband, but he was so kind and understanding. He never minded whether I was amusing or dull. He thought it impossible that I could be dull. I didn't have to bother about any of that.

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.

They were fortified with all the resilience that youth presents to an emotional shock. In the midst of murder and attempted suicide, they had managed, not only to behave with address and good sense, but all to fall in love with each other.

What do you think, Mr Alleyn? If there's another war will the young chaps come at it, same as we did, thinking it's great? And get the same jolt? What do you reckon?" "I'm afraid to speculate," said Alleyn.

With corpses stiffening on the premises, sir, all things be possible to a man with a desperate powerful idea egging him on.