Amateur Sleuth Quotes

It's as if they've planned out my life for me and I'm expected to live it for them. I hate it. So I don't tell anyone much. It's easier that way." ~Dani O'Meara from the forthcoming amateur sleuth mystery, Dangerous Days for Dani ~ Claire A. Murray

He wrote to his father every day. His platoon called his dad a girlfriend. ~ Noorilhuda

No one is so modest as not to believe himself a competent amateur sleuth ... ~ Isaac Asimov

Death by misadventure sounds like a hopeful possibility.
--Marjorie Branell-Markson ~ Jennifer A. Girardin

Please don't complicate the investigation by offering an explanation that might actually be true.
--Marjorie Branell-Markson ~ Jennifer A. Girardin

I began to appreciate that the job of an amateur sleuth was not quite so straightforward as they make out in the whodunits. ~ Bruce Beckham

How do you circumvent a mind bent upon lying to get away from the truth? ~ Noorilhuda

He also knew the language of The Klingons, but the army had no use for it. ~ Noorilhuda

Aurora, you're a child, live like one, don't act like one. Enjoy the innocence, dump the immaturity. ~ Noorilhuda

Moriston House is really quite beautiful. No wonder everyone wants to be murdered here.
--Roberta "Bobbie" Aldridge ~ Jennifer A. Girardin

I ask you, what would you do if you could erase one bad memory and retain all that was beautiful in your life? Would you not move heaven and earth - and get loads of therapy - to have that? ~ Noorilhuda

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.
~ Yehuda Amichai

True, but there was a plaque depicted in the painting, hung around the figure's neck, and on it was writing in Sumerian cuneiform. As you know, in addition to my other studies, I am an amateur necrolinguist - "

"It means the likes to lick the dead," explained Henri.

"It means he studies dead languages," corrected Lucien. ~ Christopher Moore

Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity. ~ Jane Smiley

The amateur is very rare in French literature - as rare as he is common in our own. ~ Lytton Strachey

I just quit in the third year of high school and started singing at amateur hours. ~ Sarah Vaughan

You count a man's U.S. Amateur titles after he starts winning professional majors. That's something any intelligent golf writer with a sense of history is supposed to know. ~ Dan Jenkins

it was precisely the amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all. He ~ George Orwell

It is good for a professional to be reminded that his professionalism is only a husk, that the real person must remain an amateur, a lover of the work. ~ May Sarton

When I was a kid, I was playing in various bands - amateur bands, garage bands, weekend bands, you name it, around the area. At some point, I just wanted to try the whole 'Beatle tribute band' thing, so I found a local band that was doing that. ~ Steve Landes

I can find my way from 500 A.D. through to 1066 pretty well as an amateur historian. ~ Robert Plant

Between the amateur and the professional ... there is a difference not only in degree but in kind. The skillful man is, within the function of his skill, a different psychological organization ... A tennis player or a watchmaker or an airplane pilot is an automatism but he is also criticism and wisdom. ~ Bernard DeVoto

I won't tell," he said, his arms holding my waist with amateur stiffness. I smiled, thinking about the lover he'd become and all the things he'd try with me for the very first time. I'd be the sexual yardstick for his whole life: Jack would spend the rest of his days trying but failing to relive the experience of being given everything at a time when he knew nothing. Like a tollbooth in his memory, every partner he'd have afterwards would have to pass through the gate of my comparison, and it would be a losing equation. The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naivety would be subtracted from my experience to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible. ~ Alissa Nutting

Women don't have dicks and they don't want dicks. That amateur psychology crap that women want penises. And they certainly don't want testicles. Because you know no women in her right mind is going to carry around a bag that she can't put stuff in. ~ Bobby Slayton

We were watching the first series recently, and it has a charm, a kind of amateur charm. At that point we didn't involve ourselves technically at all - we just messed about and told our jokes - and it looks a bit like that. ~ Jennifer Saunders

There should be a dash of the amateur in criticism. For the amateur is a man of enthusiasm who has not settled down and is not habit bound. ~ Brooks Atkinson

Jessie Wallace was the first time I erupted. She was late, she was young. She's not like that any more. I lost my temper. It was silly and I burst into tears and ran up to the producer. I said I had been terrible and amateur. ~ Barbara Windsor

Unlike what you may be told in other sectors of life, when observing the universe, size does matter, which often leads to polite 'telescope envy' at gatherings of amateur astronomers. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

habits and qualities that the professional possesses that the amateur doesn't: 1. The professional shows up every day 2. The professional stays on the job all day 3. The professional is committed over the long haul 4. For the professional, the stakes are high and real Further: 5. The professional is patient 6. The professional seeks order 7. The professional demystifies 8. The professional acts in the face of fear 9. The professional accepts no excuses 10. The professional plays it as it lays 11. The professional is prepared 12. The professional does not show off 13. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique 14. The professional does not hesitate to ask for help 15. The professional does not take failure or success personally 16. The professional does not identify with his or her instrument 17. The professional endures adversity 18. The professional self-validates 19. The professional reinvents herself 20. The professional is recognized by other professionals ~ Steven Pressfield

Danger is the snack food of a true sleuth. ~ Mac Barnett

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

The real amateur of wine can only enjoy it along with friends, sharing with them the art of conversation and the art of drinking. Wine is indeed essentially a sign of civilization, a factor of sociability, friendship. ~ Jean Drapeau

Every expert was once an amateur. ~ Jeekeshen Chinnappen

For a long time, we've worked on detecting planets with whatever was at hand, making use of existing small telescopes or even amateur telescopes. It's time to move on to the next stage. ~ Andrew Gould

But as an amateur, the highest level you can box at is the Olympics. I did that at 18 and felt it was time to move on to other challenges as a professional. ~ Billy Joe Saunders

Rembrandt was way ahead of his time. It's as if he was painting an amateur theatrical, or a professional theatrical, in his studio. It's a kind of performance. ~ Peter Schjeldahl

A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it; an amateur is one who can't when he does feel like it. ~ James Agate

We amateur athletes are peculiarly devoted to our fitness, and our obsessions can sometimes be a burden to our loved ones and a mystery to everyone else. ~ Peter Sagal

He is a musical man, an Amateur, but might've been a Professional. He is an Artist, too; an Amateur, but might've been a Professional. He is a man of attainments and of captivating manners. ~ Charles Dickens

Vampire Slayer," I grumbled, "Try killing a god sometime and then get back to me. Blondie wouldn't last a day. She'd be whining to her mommy about the unfairness of it all within minutes. Oh, and falling for your prey... total amateur. You don't poop where you eat and you don't kill where you sleep. Or sleep with who you kill. No wait, that's necrophilia," I frowned and then shook my head. "Oh whatever, it's just dumb to let your prey seduce you. ~ Amy Sumida

In the theatre, as anyone knows who's even done amateur theatre all their lives, you immediately find a family there. Because you're under stress, you're trying to create something, you're putting on a show, you find brothers and sisters right away. ~ Saul Rubinek

Underground dance music - in the nicest way possible - it's amateur ~ Axwell

Every week, as an 11-year-old kid, I would tune in to what was really the first American Idol-type program, a radio show called 'Major Bowes' Amateur Hour.' The winning group on the evening of September 8, 1935, was called the Hoboken Four, and their spokesman was Frank Sinatra, then aged 19. ~ Tony Bennett

Their lifelong love of learning, their remarkable wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, was fostered primarily by their father. He read aloud to them at night, eliciting their responses to works of history and literature. He organized amateur plays for them, encourage pursuit of special interests, prompted them to write essays on their readings, and urge them to recite poetry. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

Your intent to find a mate sends out 'strands of consciousness'
however, composed of desire and intent. Like detectives, these
search the world, looking in a completely different way than
a physical sleuth. The world is probed with your characteristics
in mind, seeking for someone else with characteristics that will
best suit your own. ~ Seth

If, therefore, those called to office and leadership roles in the church remain content merely to organize and manage the internal affairs of the church, they are leaving a vacuum exactly where there ought to be vibrant, pulsating life. Of course Christian leaders need to be trained and equipped for management, for running of the organization. The church will not thrive by performing in a bumbling, amateur fashion and hoping that piety and goodwill will make up for incompetence. But how much more should a Christian minister be a serious professional when it comes to grappling with scripture and discovering how it enables him or her, in preaching, teaching, prayer, and pastoral work, to engage with the huge issues that confront us as a society and as individuals. If we are professional about other things, we ought to be ashamed not to be properly equipped both to study the Bible ouselves and to bring its ever-fresh word to others. ~ N. T. Wright

I decided, long ago, back-room negotiations with a nine iron and a pen, witness tampering, and suppression of evidence weren't for me. That's
what was expected of an independent lawyer hired by Louis Fernoza.

I wanted the corner office overlooking a
cityscape, the fine car and house, and the ability to sleep at night with a clear conscience. I'd say I achieved it all but not without a price. ~ A.E.H. Veenman

The big tragedy in baseball is that the amateur spirit has gone out of it to a large extent. ~ Larry MacPhail

He was miffed because he hadn't been the center of all my attention the night before. Pathetic. It would be enough to make me laugh, except he was also accusing me of dereliction of duty. I couldn't let my own Source believe I wouldn't do my duty. It would be difficult for him to do his job if he thought I wouldn't be doing mine. Plus it was irritating.
I drained the last of my coffee.
Karish looked horrified. "Zaire, woman, how can you gulp it down like that when it's still hot?"
Because I was a Shield. I gestured at the waiter. "You're left-handed," I said as my mug was filled. "But you use your right when you eat. You drank three mugs of ale and ate two bowls of the stew. You enjoyed it very much, even though you don't like turnip."
"Actually," he interrupted me curtly, "I'm allergic to turnip."
I almost smiled. Was he trying to shake my confidence? Amateur. "If you were allergic to turnip you wouldn't have touched the stew at all." Wouldn't want hives defiling that perfect skin. "You eat your bread like a woman - "
"What the hell does that mean?"
"You tear it off in chunks instead of biting into the whole slice. And you slather all sides with butter. That's disgusting, by the way." Butter was not icing and shouldn't be treated as such. "You sat straight in your chair, as you are now, without touching the back, despite certain fatigue. I would guess you spent some of your formative years with a wooden rod up your spine." He leaned back in ~ Moira J. Moore

You're master of what you've lived,
artisan at what you're living,
amateur at what's next to live. ~ Richard Bach