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 More Quotes by Ngaio Marsh More Quotes From 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 mastery design writing 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 able writing may 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 inspiration writing jobs It is a curious thing that when one speaks from the heart it is invariably in the worst of taste. Ngaio Marsh speak taste heart Above all things-read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied. Ngaio Marsh stylist successful writing No coffee is ever quite as good as it smells. Ngaio Marsh smell coffee if you go through life looking for insults, you may be comfortably assured of finding them. Ngaio Marsh findings insults-you may 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 answers writing jobs Expectation is the springboard of achievement. Ngaio Marsh springboards achievement expectations Custom makes monsters of us all. Ngaio Marsh customs monsters As usual she had a deceptive air of perspicacity. Ngaio Marsh deceptive usual air One should have the courage of one's loneliness. Ngaio Marsh loneliness should should-have No art should be fashionable. Ngaio Marsh fashionable should art 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 like know you research 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 parents light mind water 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 name writing people world 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 she name end always 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 me my-own self writing