Marcus Sakey Quotes

Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

Crime has always been a regrettably consistent element of the human experience.

Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.

I think crime fiction is a great way to talk about social issues, whether 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'The Lovely Bones;' violence is a way to open up that information you want to get out to the reader.

Good writers know that crime is an entre into telling a greater story about character. Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve.

I want to eliminate the basis of problems and basis of crime, and basis of terrorism.

Crime takes the pulse of a culture. It tells us the truth about us as a species.

I work in an old tradition that goes back to the ancient Greeks. You hold a mirror to crime to see what's happening in society. I could never write a crime story just for the sake of it, because I always want to talk about certain things in society.

I wanted to write as well as I possibly could to deal with life-and-death problems in contemporary society. And the form of Wilkie Collins and Graham Greene, of Hammett and Chandler, seemed to offer me all the rope I would ever need.

There's an overlap between social-realist fiction and crime fiction - a sweet spot there.

The experience of being a prosecutor gives us a sort of proctologists view of our society.

A judge who cannot punish, associates himself in the end with the criminal.

It started getting too crazy with 'Earth A.D.' The concepts started becoming too brutal and violent. It was less about fiction and more about the real world, the past, present, and future. I think a lot of people got freaked out by that.

The best crime stories are always about the crime and its consequences - you know, 'Crime And Punishment' is the classic. Where you have the crime, and its consequences are the story, but considering the crime and the consequences makes you think about the society in which the crime takes place, if you see what I mean.

For me, crime fiction was an opportunity to sneak up on readers with social issues, something they won't go out of their way to seek.

I like a movie that brings out many discussions. From my experience, every time I have done movies, they create this kind of situation. Like 'Irreversible,' 'The Passion of the Christ,' 'Malena'; it's so interesting. I like to explore the dark side of humanity. That's why I'm an actor.

Every year, I hear about Thanksgiving. Who do one give thanks to? ... And who is giving thanks? What are they giving thanks for? For lots of poverty that's on the earth and lots of war that is a-rumoring all over the earth? For lots of people who die daily and the crime that multiply?

I love cops; I'm fascinated by the criminal justice system.

I am not a political writer. I agree with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, who are social writers. I can't write in that fashion. I am not good enough for that. What I am interested in is family dramas and why we are doing bad things to each other and what our motives are.

'Ida' doesn't set out to explain history. That's not what it's about. The story is focused on very concrete and complex characters who are full of humanity with all its paradoxes. They're not pawns used to illustrate some version of history or an ideology.

For me, I really like the human drama embedded in a crime story, and I like the way European films do that.

'Scalped' is representative of the kinds of stories I like to read and I like to watch.

There are so many things going on in this world that are unbelievable. A lot of gun violence and police brutality.

It's pretty rough in South Africa. It's a rough culture. Imagine rough - well, it's rougher than that.