Top 19 Quotes & Sayings by Ngaio Marsh

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a New Zealander writer Ngaio Marsh.

Last updated on November 23, 2024.

Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.

New Zealander - Writer | April 23, 1895 - February 18, 1982

Source: Wikipedia

I always, by an involuntary act of defensiveness, return to my everyday self: so, I find, have I withdrawn from writing about experiences which have most closely concerned and disturbed me.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

Ngaio Marsh

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.

Ngaio Marsh

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.

Ngaio Marsh

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.

Ngaio Marsh

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.

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.

Ngaio Marsh

Custom makes monsters of us all.

Ngaio Marsh

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

Ngaio Marsh

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.

Ngaio Marsh

No coffee is ever quite as good as it smells.

Ngaio Marsh

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.

Ngaio Marsh

One should have the courage of one's loneliness.

Ngaio Marsh

No art should be fashionable.

Ngaio Marsh

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.

Ngaio Marsh

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.

Ngaio Marsh

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

Ngaio Marsh

Expectation is the springboard of achievement.

Ngaio Marsh