Magpie Murders Quotes

The house is seventies modern with sliding windows, gas-effect and a giant TV in the living room. There are almost no books. I'm not making any judgement. It's just the sort of thing I can't help but notice. ~ Anthony Horowitz

He had a particular liking for olde England, especially if the olde was spelled with an e. He found things like croquet, cream teas and cricket both incomprehensible and irresistible and he would have been in his element here. ~ Anthony Horowitz

Alan invented all sorts of ways of expressing things so that only he and I understood. He used language as a place for us to hide. ~ Anthony Horowitz

I held out the packet and suddenly we were friends. That's one of the only good things about being a smoker these days. You're part of a persecuted minority. You bond easily. ~ Anthony Horowitz

Pünd remembered their first case together when Fraser had failed to notice that his travelling companion, on the three-fifty train from Paddington, was actually dead. ~ Anthony Horowitz

You'd have thought that after twenty years editing murder mysteries I'd have noticed when I found myself in the middle of one. ~ Anthony Horowitz

I had chosen to play the detective - and if there is one thing that unites all the detectives I've ever read about, it's their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other. They may well be family or friends. But the detective is always the outsider. He asks the necessary questions but he doesn't actually form a relationship with anyone. He doesn't trust them, and they in turn are afraid of him. It's a relationship based entirely on deception and it's one that, ultimately, goes nowhere. Once the killer has been identified, the detective leaves and is never seen again. In fact, everyone is glad to see the back of him. ~ Anthony Horowitz

In a whodunnit, when a detective hears that Sir Somebody Smith has been stabbed thirty-six times on a train or decapitated, they accept it as a quite natural occurrence. They pack their bags and head off to ask questions, collect clues, ultimately to make an arrest. But I wasn't a detective. I was an editor - and, until a week ago, not a single one of my acquaintances had managed to die in an unusual and violent manner. Apart from my own parents and Alan, I hardly knew anyone who had died at all. It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery and what is it that attracts us - the crime or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable? I made a mental note to check out Alan's sales figures in San Pedro Sula in Honduras (the murder capital of the world). It might be that they didn't read him at all. ~ Anthony Horowitz

Much later that night, I thought the door opened and a man came into the bedroom. He was leaning on a stick. He didn't say anything but he stood there, looking sadly at Andreas and me, and as a shaft of moonlight came slanting in through the window, I recognized Atticus Pünd. I was asleep, of course, and dreaming, but I remember wondering how he had managed to enter my world before the thought occurred to me that maybe it was I who had entered his. ~ Anthony Horowitz

I've watched every episode of Poirot and Midsomer Murders on TV. I never guess the ending and I can't wait for the moment when the detective gathers all the suspects in the room and, like a magician conjuring silk scarves out of the air, makes the whole thing make sense. ~ Anthony Horowitz

This place isn't even on the internet," Hutch said as though completely proud of himself for finding a motel that looked as though fifty murders occurred in it every day. ~ Lexi Blake

Have you noticed that life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in newspapers? ~ Jean Anouilh

As she spoke, I realized that the Reign of Terror had ravaged - still ravaged - generations. A great-grandson of Henry Roan's once spoke of the legacy of the murders: "I think somewhere it is in the back of our minds. We may not realize it, but it is there, especially if it was a family member that was killed. You just have it in the back of your head that you don't trust anybody. ~ David Grann

Mathias remembered that once when he was a boy, he'd gone up to a pile of red apples that lay in the market cart, in the market near Stolberg where his father often took him. He'd always loved apples, and he couldn't resist the temptation of grabbing one out of the pile. He chose the closest, a splendid red piece of fruit that he would never forget because of his overwhelming desire to take it and hide it in the folds of his clothing. A moment after Mathias reached out and snatched it, the pile slid and applies tumbled down all around him. The farmer, who knew his father, would have been satisfied with an apology. But his father, a successful craftsman who was well-known and respected in the town, had insisted on purchasing an entire basketful of apples, because of the trouble Mathias had caused. Mathias got the worst scolding his father had ever given him. Not because of the money, but for the small act of petty thievery, which an upright man like his father would never tolerate. He shouldered his punishment, and in the end was only allowed to eat as single apple from the basket. He spent the night thinking about the pile. He had to remove only one and the whole thing had come down. He wondered if the same thing might happen with any tower, no matter how majestic and imposing it might seem, were someone to remove the right stone from the base.

The thought stayed with him throughout his life. Venice now seemed a lot like that pile of apples. If three murders truly ~ Riccardo Bruni

We are, a lot of the time, baffled by the news we see on the front pages of our newspapers, often because the stories are complex, and we missed the beginning of them anyway. (How far back do we have to go to find the roots of the Euro crisis? To 2008? 1999, when the currency came into being? 1992? 1945?) That is one of the reasons why natural disasters and murders and cases involving missing children become so involving: we understand them. ~ Nick Hornby

From my childhood, I remember a tiny old woman named Mary, made pale and almost translucent by time. Mary's childhood memories extended back to the confusing and violent finale of the Civil War, and she told stories of brutal murders in those days and refused to name some of the killers, as if dead men might still be prosecuted in the late 1950s. ~ Charles Frazier

If I could be said to have any kind of aesthetic, it's sort of a magpie aesthetic - I just go and pick up whatever is around. If you think about it, the children were there, so I took pictures of my children. It's not that I'm interested in children that much or photographing them - it's just that they were there ... ~ Sally Mann

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. ~ John Adams

I would have sooner believed in fairy tales coming true.
Of course, we all believe in fairy tales now. The Scarlet Varulv has slunk out of the pages and lives with me in this cottage. The Sleeping Prince has woken and sacked Lormere, an army of alchemy-made golems behind him as he murders his way across the country.
Stories are no longer stories; characters run rampant through the world these days. All I'm waiting for is Mully-No-Hands to knock on the window, begging to come in and warm himself, and my life will be complete.
Actually, no, that's not what I'm waiting for. ~ Melinda Salisbury

All what stuck in my mind was what the judge had said, and that was during the assault there must have been some passive co-operation on my part. Added to the fact that the Wests had only been fined £25 each for each of the charges against them, a total of £100 was all that I was worth. ~ Stephen Richards

Seated opposite me in the railway carriage, the elderly lady in the fox-fur shawl was recalling some of the murders that she had committed over the years. ~ John Boyne

Just as the world was quiet when the atrocities of apartheid were being committed, so it was when the farm murders took place. Perhaps the threshold of the world's conscience was far higher and the murdered had to number in the hundreds of thousands before they were recognized by the international community. ~ Dauglas Dauglas

I believe that all sex offenders, and especially those with multiple allegations against them, should be made known to the locality where they live. ~ Stephen Richards

You're here covering the murders, bad girl," Jackie continued. "Adora must hate that. Sleeping in her house with your dirty little brain. ( ... ) Course before Adora took it over, we all slept over at Joya's house with our dirty little brains. Same house, different crazy lady running it. ~ Gillian Flynn

I've reported murders, scandals, marriages, premieres and national political conventions. I've been amused, intrigued, outraged, enthralled and exasperated by Chicago. And I've come to love this American giant, viewing it as the most misunderstood, most underrated city in the world. There is none other quite like my City of Big Shoulders. ~ Irv Kupcinet

One sin, I know, another doth provoke.
Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke. ~ William Shakespeare

We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. ~ Paul Keating

It's not like the original movie where you thought it was the mother committing the murders, but it was actually the son. I don't think it's possible to create the kind of shock today that we created in 1959. And I don't even want to try. ~ Joseph Stefano

I knew I hadn't been the most innocent of victims, but I didn't deserve this. DC Smith stood and grinned at me as he thanked me and left the room, leaving me to cry and to ponder on his not very adept handling of the situation. ~ Stephen Richards

Ladies and Gentlemen! Silence please!" Every one was startled. They looked round-at each other, at the walls. Who was speaking? The Voice went on- a high clear voice.
You are charged with the following indictments:
Edward George Armstrong, that you did upon the 14th day of March, 1925, cause the death of Louisa Mary Clees.
Emily Caroline Brent, that upon the 5th November, 1931, you were responsible for the death of Beatrice Taylor.
William Henry Blore, that you brought about the death of James Stephen Landor on October 10th, 1928.
Vera Elizabeth Claythorne, that on the 11th day of August, 1935, you killed Cyril Ogilvie Hamilton.
Philip Lombard, that upon a date in February, 1932, you were guilty of the death of twenty-one men, members of an East African tribe.
John Gordon Macarthur, that on the 4th of January, 1917, you deliberately sent your wife's lover, Arthur Richmond, to his death.
Anthony James Marston, that upon the 14th day of November last, you were guilty of murder of John and Lucy Combes.
Thomas Rogers and Ethel Rogers, that on the 6th of May, 1929, you brought about the death of Jennifer Brady.
Lawrence John Wargrave, that upon the 10th day of June, 1930, you were guilty of the murder of Edward Seton.
Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defense? ~ Agatha Christie

Three days ago, I was a dedicated doctor sleepwalking through my own life. Since then, I had seen a ghost, gotten emails from the dead, had become a suspect in not one but two murders, was on the run from the law, had assaulted a police officer, and had enlisted the aid of a known dug dealer. ~ Harlan Coben

I'm a real magpie when it comes to music; it's all random, and there's no pattern to what I like. ~ Rhys Ifans

A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and confident; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring murders and rapine; for these as a rule injure the whole community, while the executions carried out by the prince injure only one individual. And of all princes, it is impossible for a new prince to escape the name of cruel, new states being always full of dangers ... ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

When strangers on a train or a plane ask what I do for a living, I say, "I kill people." This response makes for a short conversation. No eye contact and no sudden movement from my seat-mate. Only peace and quiet. Rare is the fellow passenger who asks why I do it.

I suppose I got tired hanging out in a book all day waiting for a story to begin. I write the kind of novels I want to read. And why the theme of solving murders? Violent death is larger than life and it's the great equalizer. By law, every victim is entitled to a paladin and a chase, else life would be cheapened.

And the real reason I do this? My brain is simply bent this way. There is nothing else I would rather do. This neatly chains into my theory of the writing life. If you scratch an artist, under the skin you will find a bum who cannot hold down a real job. Conversely, if you scratch a bum... but I have never done that.

The heart of my theory has puritan roots: if you love what you do, you cannot call it honest work. ~ Carol O'Connell

But you know me-I'm an information magpie, always interested in shiny bits of intel. I've never gotten in trouble because of knowing too much. ~ Tim Pratt

Motives for murder are sometimes very trivial, Madame." "What are the most usual motives, Monsieur Poirot?" "Most frequent - money. That is to say, gain in its various ramifications. Then there is revenge - and love, and fear, and pure hate, and beneficence - " "Monsieur Poirot!" "Oh, yes, Madame. I have known of - shall we say A? - being removed by B solely in order to benefit C. Political murders often come under the same heading. Someone is considered to be harmful to civilization and is removed on that account. Such people forget that life and death are the affair of the good God. ~ Agatha Christie

If seasons diseases be, consider human's too, his fate same it's true
Rudest time steels, and murders through fever, pain, amid all in woe.
Swelling then cold, yet numb, in young and old, fearing wildest swell,
See it turns the sweetest singers throats, and morrow, a garland will.

On 'Seasons A Dirge'-A Dirge
For A Diseased Friend Who Died Of Fever In 2013 ~ Nithin Purple

I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops. I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock, tasted more than any fit belly could hold, learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me. ~ Ben Hecht

Gun-related violence and murders are concentrated among blacks and Latinos in big cities. ~ Juan Williams

An Angst is the proper word for a group of vampires. Crows have murders, wolves have packs, vampires have angsts. ~ Andrew Seiple

The murders of Newtown are a warning to me - and you. Not a warning to see our schools as defenseless, but to see our souls as depraved. To see our need for a Savior. To humble ourselves in repentance for the God-diminishing bitterness of our hearts. To turn to Christ in desperate need, and to treasure his forgiveness, his transforming, and his friendship. ~ John Piper

Jane's stories are too sensible. Then Diana puts too much murders into hers. She says most of the time she doesn't know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid of them.
-Anne Shirley ~ L.M. Montgomery

A magpie flies like a frying pan!'8 he could write, with the joy of discovering something new in the world. And it is that joy, that childish delight in the lives of creatures other than man, that I love most in White. He was a complicated man, and an unhappy one. But he knew also that the world was full of simple miracles. ~ Helen Macdonald

There are many, many serial sexual murders that have a history of killing cats, torturing cats, tormenting cats, ~ Jack Rosewood

Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. "It's a bonny thing," said he. "Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found in the banks of the Amoy River in soutern China and is remarkable in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison? ~ Arthur Conan Doyle