Donna Leon quotes

Donna Leon is an American author best known for her crime novels featuring the Venetian detective Commissario Guido Brunetti. Her books are celebrated for their vivid portrayal of Venice and insightful social commentary. She has gained international acclaim and her works have been translated into multiple languages. Here are 22 of her 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.

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.

Donna Leon

I just go to lunch. And I never know when something is going into the file and something is not.

Donna Leon

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

Donna Leon

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the most liberal and illumined of the nine Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

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.

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.

Donna Leon

I do not take any pleasure whatsoever in being a famous person.

Donna Leon

Venetians feel affection and loyalty to their city, rather than to the Italian state.

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.

Donna Leon

The ending is one of my blackest, utterly without hope of any sort.

Donna Leon

I have always had a particular antagonism for the military.

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.

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.

Donna Leon

I don't go to the movies because I don't like films.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Donna Leon

Donna Leon

Donna Leon - Image

Photo: Michiel Hendryckx, CC BY-SA 3.0

Occupation: American Author
Born: September 28, 1942
Quotes count: 22

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