Martin Cruz Smith > Quotes

“The great thing about being a writer is that you are always re-creating yourself.”
― Martin Cruz Smith

“Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.”
― Martin Cruz Smith

“It was like a Russian party, Arkady thought. People got drunk, recklessly confessed their love, spilled their festering dislike, had hysterics, marched out, were dragged back in and revived with brandy. It wasn't a French salon.”
― Martin Cruz Smith

“Proust said that you could seduce any woman if you were willing to sit and listen to her complain until four in the morning.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“Stalin gothic was not so much an architectural style as a form of worship. Elements of Greek, French, Chinese and Italian masterpieces had been thrown into the barbarian wagon and carted to Moscow and the Master Builder Himself, who had piled them one on the other into the cement towers and blazing torches of His rule, monstrous skyscrapers of ominous windows, mysterious crenellations and dizzying towers that led to the clouds, and yet still more rising spires surmounted by ruby stars that at night glowed like His eyes. After His death, His creations were more embarrassment than menace, too big for burial with Him, so they stood, one to each part of town, great brooding, semi-Oriental temples, not exorcised but used.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“I looked you up, Arkady. You have a checkered career."
"I'm flattered. I was unaware of having any career at all.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, The Siberian Dilemma

“The most beautiful women in the world were African.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Rose

“He never had been good at arguing with women; they tapped into pools of resentment over slights that had steeped for years.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Tatiana

“Kali is the goddess of destruction, the Clawed Hands, the Blood Drinker... And that's one side of her, as it is for any god. If you knew her for thousands of years you'd know she could be all colors. The sky is black at night, but if your eyes were good enough, they could see the different lights of a million stars. Death is part of her because death is part of life.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gypsy in Amber

“There are not many road signs in Russia, you know. He laughed. If you don't know where the road goes, you shouldn't be on it.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“Wolves eat dogs." That did seem to be the consensus of the village, Arkady thought. Roman shook his head as if he'd given the matter a lot of consideration. "Wolves hate dogs. Wolves hunt down dogs because they regard them as traitors. If you think about it, dogs are dogs only because of humans; otherwise they'd all be wolves, right? And where will we be when all the dogs are gone? It will be the end of civilization.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Wolves Eat Dogs

“In an unjust society a man may violate laws for valid social or economic reasons. In a just society there are no valid reasons except mental illness.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire.’ ”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Polar Star

“Well, love was no fading violet; love was a weed that flourished in the dark. Has anyone ever explained it?”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“Arkady was an Investigator of Special Cases, and if a bear running loose in the heart of Moscow was not a special case, he didn't know what was.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, The Siberian Dilemma

“How easily, without noticing, a man finds himself parallel to the life he meant to have, then arrives, years later, to find the band gone, flowers dead, love past.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Red Square

“Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gypsy in Amber

“Between the intention and the act, life was often a tale told to the deaf. •”
― Martin Cruz Smith, The Girl from Venice

“There are two kinds of vodka, good and very good.’ Who”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“Your such a cynic.
Exactly, that's what you call a guy who tells you the truth.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, December 6

“A nurse the size of a shipping hazard peered over him and smiled. Some of her teeth were missing, some were gold, and the sight was so unnerving that Arkady hoped he wouldn’t give her cause to smile again.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, The Siberian Dilemma

“Well, the Romanies have been around for five thousand years, longer than any nation. And why? Because we know how to survive. The Aryans tried to kill us, the Persians, the Tatars, the Magyars, the Africans, the Germans, everybody. But we stay together, and we move on, and we keep one thing in mind, to survive, and that is our greatest secret.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gypsy in Amber

“To capture the human cost of fallen empire with all its horror and absurdity, Sheets offers the right combination: the political insight of a top reporter and the power of a novelist.”
― Martin Cruz Smith

“The gaja might despise the Romany, but no Rom ever forgot his dead. For him, roaming over the earth were not only the half million Gypsies who drew breath but also the countless Gypsies who had gone before, restless spirits still wandering through cities and deserts, still real.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gypsy in Amber

“Everyone is too young when their mother dies.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, The Siberian Dilemma

“She [Kali] does according to her wisdom in destroying what is useless or what has lived its destined time.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gypsy in Amber

“it swallows gas like a drunk, but a man who lets guilt ruin pleasure is the pincushion of fate.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Tatiana

“These enemies of society are to be driven out of New York regardless of their constitutional rights.’ The”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

“I hate the Army,” Eberly said.
“The Army wants you to hate it,” Joe said. “It’s the Army system. It’s what bonds us all together into a fighting unit.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, Stallion Gate

“The one thing that stung Zhenya was the insinuation that he ducked the best players,
"Anyone I play it's their choice," Zhenya said. "I can't help it if I'm better than they are. Sometimes I play a rook or a bishop down. What could be fairer than that?"
"They never know what hit them," Sosi said; her eyes grew as round as moons. She looked like the perfect fanatic to encourage a leap into a volcano. She rolled a rook back and forth on the Formica, as if she were gathering an electric charge. "Zhenya can turn any game into a slaughter."
It was like visiting the Macbeths, Arkady thought.”
― Martin Cruz Smith, The Siberian Dilemma