Detective Tapp Quotes

Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project.
Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking. ~ Rust Cohle, True Detective

I think it's important to recognise that 'The Da Vinci Code' opened up a vast new audience for a general readership interested in historical detective stories and research into history. ~ Elizabeth Kostova

The old detective story that's got a really complicated motive doesn't apply to mine. ~ Ruth Rendell

I know what kind of things I myself have been irritated by in detective stories. They are often about one or two persons, but they don't describe anything in the society outside. ~ Stieg Larsson

Anything is easy to the man who sees ... The open eye of the open mind
that has more to do with real detective work than all the deduction and induction and analysis ever devised. ~ Samuel Hopkins Adams

Yeah, I'd say there's probably about a couple of hundred people I admire - but that has nothing to do with what a person does themselves. That's why I never mention these things. You can read a detective novel you really like, but it had no bearing on what you do yourself, you just think, "God, how this guy wove this together!" Or you get into the energy of it. Or you see a poem which makes a great statement about sentiment, but it's not sentimental. ~ Tom Verlaine

Valkyrie walked over to her. Since she had met her, all she'd wanted to do was punch her face in. But that was when Kitana has been big and powerful and brimming with murderous arrogance. The girl standing before her now, crying and blubbing like any teenage girl would do under these circumstances, was not the same girl Valkyrie had wanted to punch.
But she'd do.
Valkyrie's fist connected with such a satisfying jolt that it actually made her smile as Kitana fell sideways, eyes already rolling in her head. Valkyrie resisted the urge to kick her as she lay crumpled.
Such behaviour would be unbecoming of a Sanctuary detective. ~ Derek Landy

Narrativity presumes a special taste for plot. And this taste for plot was always very present in the Anglo-Saxon countries and that explains their high quality of detective novels. ~ Umberto Eco

My internal temper tantrum tirade continued: But attracting and holding the interest of someone like Quinn Sullivan will have to go into my box of make believe with the eventual remake of Final Fantasy 7 with Playstation 3 graphics or finding an original, pristine version of Detective Comics No. 27- Batman's debut. ~ Penny Reid

If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective. ~ David Herbert Donald

One cannot think well, love well, or sleep well, if one has not dined well. ~ Linda Weaver Clarke

I know what you're thinking - that anybody with proper sensitive feelings would rather scrub floors for a living. But I should scrub floors very badly, and I write detective stories rather well. I don't see why proper feelings should prevent me from doing my proper job. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.
8. The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
9. The "sidekick" of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them. ~ Ronald Knox

Detective Sonia Alcana: Someday you'll have to tell me how you do it, Batman. How you keep from crossing the line. When I put on the mask, I couldn't even see the line anymore. ~ Alan Burnett

You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off. ~ Raymond Chandler

Your novels show only the tiniest fraction of detective work, the brilliant crime, the tantalizing clues, the dramatic chase, the final battle atop a lofty peak with ocean waves crashing down below, and then ... justice served! If they wrote about the real world, four-fifths of the story would consist of the hero sitting in a library for months and following false leads. ~ Stefan Petrucha

If you two are starting a detective agency, I want in," said Selene, adjusting her ball cap.

"Well, duh," said Eli, beaming at her.

"And we're going to need a name," Selene said. "Something good and catchy."

"You're right." Eli scratched his chin. "How about the Arkwell Detective Agency. The A.D.A."

Selene wrinkled her nose. "Sounds too much like a chemical or something."

"What about Booker and Associates?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's not all about you, you know?"

Eli grinned. "Says who?"

"I think we should call it Selene Investigations."

"No, Nightmare Investigations."

"Dreamer Investigations."

"The Dream Team."

"How about Magic Eyes? You know, like private eyes, only for magic."

"Corny much? ~ Mindee Arnett

Detective Virgil and Barlow [bomb-technician] arranged to meet at the Starbucks. Virgil got a grande hot chocolate, no-fat milk, no foam, no whipped cream, and Barlow got a venti latte with an extra shot. As they took a corner table, Virgil said, "Remind me not to stand next to you if you're handling a bomb. That much caffeine, you gotta be shakin' like a hundred-dollar belly dancer."
"At least I'm not drinking like a little girl," Barlow said. ~ John Sandford

She stared at me "You have a message," she said. "On you machine."
I looked over at my answering machine. Sure enough, the light was blinking. The woman really was a detective.
"It's some girl," La Guerta said. "She sounds kind of sleepy and happy. You got a girlfriend, Dexter?" there was a strange hint of a challenge in her voice.
"You know how it is," I said. "Women today are so forward, and when you are as handsome as I am they absolutely fling themselves at your head." Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words; as I said it I couldn't help thinking of the woman's head flung at me not so long ago.
"Watch out," La Guerta said. "Sooner or later one of them will stick." I had no idea what she thought that meant, but it was a very unsettling image.
"I'm sure you're right," I said. "Until then, carpe diem."
"What?"
"It's Latin," I said. "It means, complain in the daylight. ~ Jeff Lindsay

Peter! Were you looking for a horse-shoe?"
"No; I was expecting the horse, but the shoe is a piece of pure, gorgeous luck."
"And observation. I found it."
"You did. And I could kiss you for it. You need not shrink and tremble. I am not going to do it. When I kiss you, it will be an important event
one of those things which stand out among their surroundings like the first time you tasted li-chee. It will not be an unimportant sideshow attached to a detective investigation. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of mind that can produce the artistic job of writing. ~ Raymond Chandler

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of. ~ Dashiell Hammett

Detective Comic #27: The very first glimpse we get of the guy and already he looks pissed. ~ Glen Weldon

But he couldn't feel self-pity in the face of the memorial. He hadn't lost nearly enough as these children, who'd lost their homeland and, in many cases,their whole families. Perhaps they had gained something, too, though. They had at least escaped the concentration camps, been taken in by good, caring families, and had grown up to live their lives in relative freedom. ~ Peter Robinson

Detective Sergeant Lincoln Gibbs was a tall, thin African-American with mocha-colored skin, a profoundly receding hairline, and tortoiseshell spectacles. He looked like a college professor, which was a look he cultivated. He had twenty-eight years on the job, less than Tomsic, but more time in grade as a detective sergeant, so Linc Gibbs would be in charge. He arrived with Detective-three Pete Bishop, a twenty-two-year veteran with an M.A. in psychology and five divorces. Bishop rarely spoke, but was known to make copious notes, which he referred to often. He had a measured IQ of 178 and a drinking problem. He was currently in twelve-step. ~ Robert Crais

Conan Doyle deluded a century of readers into thinking we're all deductive geniuses. ~ Rob Thomas

First the girl, then the detective, now the wolf. The town was starting to unravel. ~ John Connolly

Tonight, he'd looked broken. She'd been afraid to touch him, as if one brush of skin would send him shattering into a million pieces. But then she had, and he'd clung to her as if he'd been afraid to let go. Some people might see it as weakness, but she didn't. She knew how it felt to have life yank the rug out from under you. She knew what it meant to need someone to hold you, to share the weight of the world for a minute. For a second. She would have held him all night. And then her father had shown up to act like Detective Dickhead. As usual. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

They wouldn't tell Scipio how much of the counterfeit cash was left since, as Riccio put it, 'You're a detective now, after all. ~ Cornelia Funke

I read two mysteries a day when I was a kid. All of Agatha Christie, all of 'Sherlock Holmes.' I've seen every single British detective show ever made. ~ Maureen Johnson

See, Curry, Detective Willis felt I was holding back some information and so he sulked off, like all men do when they don't get their way with women they've fooled around with. ~ Gillian Flynn

Danvers still stops by in the morning. He talks for a few minutes and then gets a coffee and leaves. We haven't moved past the stage of smiling, though Land is always mimicking his semi-flirtations. I pointed out that since he and the detective go back, he should broach the subject, but Land just snorts and goes back to cutting up the vegetables. ~ Chloe Kendrick

The best crime novels are not about how a detective works on a case; they are about how a case works on a detective. ~ Michael Connelly

I don't think it's healthy for a man to be always brooding over crime and detective stories, reading up all sorts of cases. It puts ideas into his head. ~ Agatha Christie