Donna Leon quotes

Italians know about human nature - they understand human nature perhaps better than anyone else does. They know that people are weak and greedy and lazy and dishonest and they just try to make the best of it; to work around it. (Donna Leon)
All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James. View quote
Donna Leon
I find the idea of vigilante justice very attractive. I like the idea that the murderer decides that this person has gone too far, and nothing will happen to him unless she does something to stop him. View quote
Donna Leon
I just go to lunch. And I never know when something is going into the file and something is not. View quote
Donna Leon
I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline. View quote
Donna Leon
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the most liberal and illumined of the nine Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. View quote
Donna Leon
The Germans and Austrians are very polite, the Swiss are very reserved and the Spanish usually kiss me. The Brits write me letters. View quote
Donna Leon
I was at La Fenice opera house back in 1991 with friends, and we started talking about a conductor whom none of us liked. Somehow there was an escalation, and we started talking about how to kill him, where to kill him. This struck me as a good idea for a book. View quote
Donna Leon
I do not take any pleasure whatsoever in being a famous person. View quote
Donna Leon
Venetians feel affection and loyalty to their city, rather than to the Italian state. View quote
Donna Leon
I love music. But I've never owned a TV in my adult life, and I've never lived in a place with a television. (Donna Leon)
I never wanted to be rich or successful or famous. I just wanted to be happy and have fun. View quote
Donna Leon
The ending is one of my blackest, utterly without hope of any sort. View quote
Donna Leon
I have always had a particular antagonism for the military. View quote
Donna Leon
I was extraordinarily lucky. I wrote a book because I wanted to see if I could write a mystery. Someone nagged me into sending it to a contest, which it won, after which I was offered a two-book contract, thus requiring the writing of a second book. View quote
Donna Leon
I'm involved with a baroque opera company here in Italy. I write some of their booklet material, comments on operas. I also write for some baroque opera festivals because this music is my real passion. View quote
Donna Leon
I don't go to the movies because I don't like films. View quote
Donna Leon
A story begins and it always passes from the subjunctive to the declarative. And Italians don't seem to care about making a fine distinction between that which is speculation and that which is fact. View quote
Donna Leon
My father read 'The New York Times,' my mother did secretarial work, we had a dog, we had a garden, I had a brother. View quote
Donna Leon
I know you shouldn't spit in your own soup but I think most crime writing is like TV and doesn't make enormous demands on one's intellect. View quote
Donna Leon
So much of contemporary crime fiction is painful to read and obsessed with violence, particularly against women, and I can't read that. (Donna Leon)
And I don't want to live anywhere where I am famous. It makes me very, very uncomfortable, because it conveys an advantage over people, and I don't like that. View quote
Donna Leon