American - Author | September 29, 1942 -
I came to Venice for the first time in 1968 and was lucky enough to make the acquaintanceship, and then the friendship, of two Venetians, Roberta and Franco, who remain my best friends here after almost 50 years.
Donna Leon
FriendshipTimeBestFriendsEnough
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.
GoodMeBookFriendsTalkingHouse
All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James.
SchoolTelevisionGraduate School
I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.
PlanKnowNeverHappenGoingNovel
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.
MusicPassionFestivalsWriteReal
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.
WritingSoupThinkYouKnowCrime
So much of contemporary crime fiction is painful to read and obsessed with violence, particularly against women, and I can't read that.
WomenViolenceCrimeFictionPainful
The character I created, 'Commissario Brunetti,' who appears in all my books, shares similar reading, artistic and musical tastes with me. Subconsciously, I knew that if I was to spend however long it would take to write this book with him, this man would have to be someone I'd like to have dinner with.
CharacterManMeDinnerReadingHim
I don't go to the movies because I don't like films.
GoMoviesBecauseLikeFilms
I listen to Handel's vocal music, almost exclusively.
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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.
MeWritingBookSomeoneMysterySee
The Germans and Austrians are very polite, the Swiss are very reserved and the Spanish usually kiss me. The Brits write me letters.
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