Denise Mina Quotes

I knew I'd never have the career Colin Farrell had. I was working in stuff that was, for me, not very challenging. My career wasn't going as well as I wanted it to. So I turned to writing because I felt like I had more to say, and I started writing every day.

I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist.

Sometimes I claim I write because I put in an application at Sears and they've never called back.

I was the kind of person who knew what he wanted to do; I wanted to write, I wanted not to be in school, and I felt that university would just be spending another four years of my life before I could write.

I'd wanted to be a writer and when I came back to New York worked as a musician too, but I found my writing starting to get more and more referential to cinema.

I got an offer at 'Vogue.' And I desperately wanted to work in magazines. My interest wasn't in fashion, but when you get an offer right out of college for a magazine that big - I decided that it was probably better to start at a big name magazine, even if I wasn't necessarily fascinated with the subject.

I had always wanted to run my own show and focus solely on the writing, and that's what 'Survivor's Remorse' has been for me.

The Strauss allowed me to be a writer. Without it, 'The Emperor's Children' would not exist. When I received the award, I was teaching, had one baby, and was pregnant with another. There was no time for writing.

When you get your dream job, you'd be really hard-pressed to leave it. Unless you've got another dream job out there.

I'm always fascinated by why a person becomes a writer.

Once I started getting paid to be a writer and not having lots of other gross responsibilities, like making the puzzle or whatever, then my ambition changed, and I thought, 'Now I want to be a good writer.' And that became my ambition.

I don't know if I ever entertained an academic career, nor did I ever think I'd become a feature film-maker in the market.

There are two ways to approach the application process: trying to hit a home run by getting an immediate 'Yes, here's an offer' or trying not to be eliminated. I recommend the second approach.

I am now in the full maturity of my age and vigor of my mind. Persons of various descriptions have repeatedly solicited me to turn my mind to dramatical composition. It was, indeed, the first amusement of my thoughts in my school-boy cell.

I get offered stuff that I don't really want to do, so hopefully, I'm just kind of waiting for the right thing.

I didn't know I was gonna be a writer when I started out.

I still dream about 'New York' mag. It's kind of weird. I dream I'm part-time, and they can't find a full-time job for me. It's usually that I can't find a lead, and I call all my great sources and say, 'Can you help me out?'

I wasn't always interested in technology. I had been a student for a long time - I'd earned a bachelor's degree, a law degree, and an MBA - and decided that I wanted to work in a large corporation, focusing on finance and law, in either New York or Chicago.

I actually applied at Hanna-Barbera to work on 'The Smurfs' when I got laid off for a brief period of time from Disney. I didn't get the job. That was my first introduction to Smurfs.

I want to make it clear, I'm not whining, and the Celtics owe me nothing. But having said that, you would think at least I would have a conversation about a coaching job, since that's what I want to do.

I'll never be a TV writer.

Definitely for writing, what inspires me is poetry, which I have next to me all the time because I think they're doing what I'm doing, but much harder, more condensed. It's the same job, but they're more talented. All of them. So I just steal openly from them.

I always thought it'd be cool to portray these certain things, make people feel a certain way. I was kind of fascinated with that, but I wasn't the type to do acting school or theater. I didn't have the best views of Hollywood, so it wasn't something that I was going to try and pursue.

I don't want to just be another actor in L.A. looking for a job.

I'm pursuing film and TV, and it's exciting because I feel I can write in almost any genre now.