Mystery Novels Quotes

A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot ... ~ Don DeLillo

Both men were pictures of the kind of grief that cauterizes open wounds in memory and turns them into black scars. ~ B.V. Lawson

He was a Super Politician, defender of untruths, injustice and the American power-play. ~ B.V. Lawson

I started out a human being. But pretty much had all the humanity wrung out of me after passing the Bar and practicing law for ten years. Not sure what I am now. ~ Jeffrey Rasley

He had a bushy unibrow that could house a family of quail. ~ Lida Sideris

The sliver of sun turned water crystals among the coal-colored clouds into the halo of a sundog. ~ B.V. Lawson

The mouse, its curiosity piqued, circled the body lying on the kitchen floor. On its second pass the inquisitive rodent paused as it reached a position about six inches from the head. ~ James Ignizio

He lost his appetite for reading. He was afraid of being overwhelmed again. In mystery novels people died like dolls being discarded; in science fiction enormities of space and time conspired to crush the humans ; and even in P.G. Wodehouse he felt a hollowness, a turning away from reality that was implicitly bitter, and became explicit in the comic figures of futile parsons. ~ John Updike

Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels. ~ Natalie Goldberg

She had an exciting job, several good friends, her cat, her peanut M&Ms, the mystery novels she was forever reading, and - well, me. ~ Tom Savage

The love of money can do wicked things to one's soul. ~ Jules Haigler

For many years, I read mystery novels for relaxation. But my tastes were too narrow - and, having read all of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, I discovered that the implausibility and the thinness of the people distracted me unduly from the plot. ~ John Updike

I measure my days by the number of homicidal thoughts I have. I only had two today. So it must have been good. ~ Lida Sideris

When I was in my early 20s, my dream was to write mystery novels. I wanted to do what my favourite crime writer, Ross Macdonald, did - crank out a book a year. The only problem - and it was a considerable one - was that I stank. ~ Linwood Barclay

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable. ~ Raymond Chandler

The pulse of New York City can be found on the bent elbows of the patrons in Pete's Tavern. ~ Mickey Wyte

If I had a bookstore I would make all the mystery novels hard to find. ~ Demetri Martin

The mystery story is two stories in one: the story of what happened and the story of what appeared to happen. ~ Mary Roberts Rinehart

Injustice, large and small, was like sour, moldy bread. Consumed often enough, it brought on hunger for the meat of revenge. ~ B.V. Lawson

Westcott lived in the most perilous zone between waking and night - the shadowlands of watching and waiting, questioning and listening. He lived in the glade of remembrance." - from Who Has Known Heights ~ Wheston Chancellor Grove

Has all the trappings of a mystery novel, doesn't it? ~ Patricia Cornwell

A good mystery keeps you up on Saturday night. A bad mystery puts you to sleep on Sunday afternoon. Either way, you come out ahead. ~ Elizabeth Jane Howard

Sometimes, we miss the truth when it's right in front of us, she thought. Sometimes the closer we are, the harder it is to see. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

When I began writing, I did not realize that the Holocaust would become a critical part of the story. During and after WWII, neither the survivors of the Holocaust nor the combat solders were diagnosed or treated for what is now known as PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder). Many of the characters in this book were victims of this now well-known disorder. ~ Helene Uhlfelder

I don't believe that murders can be "solved." I think that this is the big lie of the mystery novel, that you should close the book and feel that the world is back in order and everything's all right. I want the reader to know that the world is not all right, and maybe we ought to do something about it. ~ George Pelecanos

Tom gave him a suspicious look. "Stanley, you've never actually worked a homicide investigation, right?"
"No, but how hard can it be? You collect all the clues and you put them together, and voila. I have read a lot of mystery novels. ~ Victor J. Banis

Make no mistake about it, the detective-story is part of the literature of escape, and not of expression. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

He launched into the color-tsunami of Prokofiev's fourth piano sonata. It soon carried him onto a distant shore where the only thing broken was the silence. ~ B.V. Lawson

His overactive charm poured out like a lone drainage pipe after a flash flood. ~ Lida Sideris

Ghosts from the past weave spells in the present to draw a veil of secrecy over the future. ~ Sean Best

You alone in Europe are not ancient oh Christianity
The most modern European is you Pope Pius X
And you whom the windows observe shame keeps you
From entering a church and confessing this morning
You read the prospectuses the catalogues the billboards that sing aloud
That's the poetry this morning and for the prose there are the newspapers
There are the 25 centime serials full of murder mysteries
Portraits of great men and a thousand different headlines
("Zone") ~ Guillaume Apollinaire

I would say that, in the future, the book will be reserved for things that function best as a book. So, if I need a textbook that's going to be out of date because of new technological inventions, you're better off having it where you can download the supplements or the update. ~ Art Spiegelman

We just have to sort through the junk. You know, like organising a jumbled box of beads. All we have to do is put each piece in its proper place, and we'll be able to see what we have. ~ Janice Peacock

People bring you books, cheap paperbacks, when you're in the hospital: this was how I found out that I hate mystery novels. ~ John Darnielle

If you accomplish nothing in life... do not tell your friends... they expected it. If you accomplish success in life... find new friends,"... Redmond Herring ~ Redmond Herring

My crime books are actually novels and are written as such. One might even say that each one is really two novels, one of which is the story I tell the reader, and the other the buried story I know and let slip now and then into a clue to whet the reader's interest. ~ Mary Roberts Rinehart

Blood doesn't speak of its owner. ~ Mita Jain

In fact this bad baronet died true to the conditions of his kind--mysteriously in his library, at midnight, while a great deal of snow was falling. ~ Michael Innes

But Erin let it slide. The child was only four years old; she had a whole lifetime to learn about sadness. Today was for Dalmatians, ice cream and new dolls. ~ Carl Hiaasen

I looked for any footmarks of course, but naturally, with all this rain, there wasn't a sign. Of course, if this were a detective story, there'd have been a convenient shower exactly an hour before the crime and a beautiful set of marks which could only have come there between two and three in the morning, but this being real life in a London November, you might as well expect footprints in Niagara. I searched the roofs right along - and came to the jolly conclusion that any person in any blessed flat in the blessed row might have done it. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

But show business has always been like that - any kind of show business. If these people didn't live intense and rather disordered lives, if their emotions didn't ride them too hard - well, they wouldn't be able to catch those emotions in flight and imprint them on a few feet of celluloid or project them across the footlights. ~ Raymond Chandler

As a matter of fact I don't care two pins about accuracy. Who is accurate? Nobody nowadays. If a reporter writes that a beautiful girl of twenty-two dies by turning on the gas after looking out over the sea and kissing her favourite Labrador, Bob, goodbye, does anybody make a fuss because the girl was twenty-six, the room faced inland, and the dog was a Sealyham terrier called Bonnie? If a journalist can do that sort of thing I don't see that it matters if I mix up police ranks and say a revolver when I mean an automatic and a dictograph when I mean a phonograph, and use a poison that just allows you to gasp one dying sentence and no more. What really matters is plenty of bodies! If the thing's getting a little dull, some more blood cheers it up. Somebody is going to tell something – and then they're killed first! That always goes down well. It comes in all my books – camouflaged different ways of course. And people like untraceable poisons, and idiotic police inspectors and girls tied up in cellars with sewer gas or water pouring in (such a troublesome way of killing anyone really) and a hero who can dispose of anything from three to seven villains singlehanded. ~ Agatha Christie

He knew lounging was dangerous because he could already sense depression creeping over him like a vampire's shadow. In the past, he'd found that the best way to combat this feeling was to keep moving, as if misery were a barnacle that couldn't latch on to him if he didn't sit still for too long. ~ Vivian Barz

A favored bit from "A Legend of Good Men"

"My mother and I each had our routines. She taught high school, took long hikes in the state parks near our house, read mystery novels, and sometimes disappeared with explanations as thin as, "I just need a few days," or "I'm going to visit a friend."
"Which friend?" I would ask.
"That's right," she would say. ~ David Vann

She was the kind of woman a person could die over or kill over. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Playdate. (n) A Date arranged by adults in which young children are brought together, usually at the home of one of them, for the premeditated purpose of "playing". A feature of contemporary American upscale suburban life in which "neighborhoods" have ceased to exist, and children no longer trail in and out of "neighbor childrens" houses or play in "backyards". In the absence of sidewalks in newer "gated" coummunities, children cannot "walk" to playdates but must be driven by adults, usually mothers. A "playdate" is never initiated by the players (i.e., children), but only by their mothers.
In American-suburban social climbing through playdating, this is the chapter you've been awaiting. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

In almost every thriller, a point is reached when someone, usually calling from a phone booth, telephones with a vital piece of information, which he cannot divulge by phone. By the time the hero arrives at the place where they had arranged to meet, the caller is dead, or too near death to tell. There is never an explanation for the reluctance of the caller to impart his message in the first place. Certainly, the convention existed well before the age of the tape recorder and the wiretap. Not on the phone, in a spy or mystery story, has always been, in and of itself, sufficient to hold up the resolution of the case for a long, long time. ~ Renata Adler

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!' ~ Harlan Coben

I do tasks for the gods, usually things like tracking down rare items or taking someone safely to a destination.
D'Molay the Freeman Tracker ~ M. Scott Verne

It's a mistake to act as though we're not created equal.
It's another mistake not to correct the first one.
Blaming others nurtures failure.
Helping others reaps a share of their success. ~ L. Anthony

But then she put her hands on Mary's shoulders and kissed both her cheeks. Well, Mary didn't mind. Irene was the most interesting woman she had ever met. They were not in competition, but if they had been, she would happily have lost to Irene Norton. ~ Theodora Goss

Jackson watched in amazement that she had convinced the driver to handle the vehicle in such a way. Tourists began taking pictures of Imogene, standing tall in the seat while the driver guided the horse with the reins. She kept her eye trained on Catfish, describing his every step as if the driver couldn't see the runner for himself … Catfish stopped at the "T" in the road up ahead. He was heaving air, and Imogene said, "We've worn him out, son. Keep on him. He's ours for the catchin'. ~ Hunter Murphy

The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published violate this law.
(Casual Notes on the Mystery Novel, 1949) ~ Raymond Chandler

Bloody global warming. Funny breed us Brits. We moan when it rains cats and dogs and complain when it's too hot. Let the protestors emigrate to bleeding Siberia. That's what I say, eh? ~ Anthony Hulse

Durand smiles. There is nothing behind the smile except perhaps another smile, repeating ad infinitum into the distance.
'Of course,' he says. ~ Beatrice Hitchman

I peered down the alleyways and into the darkest corners. That Donovan song, 'Try and Catch the Wind', kept playing over-and-over in my head. The odor of dried fish filled the air. I breathed in deeply and smiled. I felt that God, evil, and even death were all very near, but I wasn't afraid. I didn't want to miss a single moment. ~ Richard Cezar

Humanity thrown together in the equivalent of a Petri dish under a microscope bred malignant organisms as often as benign. ~ B.V. Lawson

There is no end to the things you don't understand. The mind will search for a lie to give it an answer you can understand, but one song at the right time will challenge what you accept. ~ Shannon L. Alder

The part she hated most in mystery novels was where someone had a key piece of information but didn't tell anyone. That was always the precise moment that got conked on the head and thrown into a ditch. Obviously she had to tell someone, and quickly. ~ India Drummond

A god who cares more about a little water on the head than my daughter's character is not a deity I want her to spend eternity with. ~ Sara Paretsky

What is Strange and disconcerting about Jesus is the fact that he rarely makes demands. The style of teaching he engages in is not rote on memorization or indoctrination but Socratic, propositional and inductive. The listener is invited to explore and come to a conclusion. It is the desire of Christ for his audience to reach a conclusion and not be told what to think.
Stories, sayings, reversals, parables and other forms of teaching used by Jesus are not good teaching tools for people who seek simplistic answers. Jesus teaches but requires more of a listener. We are invited to join the journey, wrestle with our assumptions, confront our spiritual bigotry and struggle with the humbling mystery and profound profundity of God.
This is HARD faith, especially for the modern reader. We want the speaker to tell us what to think. We want our stories tidy, without complication, and we do not want questions designed to coerce us beyond easy answers. This is the LIFE and MINISTRY of Jesus. He was a walking mobile university, a theological gadfly, a spiritual teacher and Savior who cannot be contained by tradition, conformity or assimilation. Jesus is loose in the world quietly upending all assumptions, ideas and concepts we hold true. ~ Otis Moss II

If you lay down and act like a doormat... then you are sure to get walked on. ~ Janey Rosen

The mystery of the Cross does not simply confront us; rather, it draws us in and gives a new value to our life. This existential aspect of the new concept of worship and sacrifice appears with particular clarity in the twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Romans: "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [word-like] worship" (v. 1). ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Life actually is this mystery and gift. And every moment of it can be full of real radical joy and wakefulness. And for some reason in our most difficult times, we have the best chance to wake up. Many people will tell you that their divorce or illness or loss of job was the wake up call. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

Did my father talk to me? It's true, he didn't say a lot to me, but I knew what had to be done. No need for big speeches. He taught me the fundamentals of our religion: My son, Islam is simple: you are alone responsible for yourself before God, so if you are good, you will find goodness in the afterlife, and if you are bad, you'll find that instead. There's no mystery: everything depends on how you treat people, especially the weak, the poor, so Islam, that means you pray, you address the Creator and don't do evil around you, don't lie, don't steal, don't betray your wife or your country, don't kill- but do I really need to remind you of this? ~ Tahar Ben Jelloun

Not really, no,' Jemima said, although Alexa had told her - she could tell that the old lady would no doubt tell her more interesting information. She loved jewellery stories, particularly when they involved a mystery. ~ Josie Goodbody

CUSTOMER: I'm always on night shift at work.
BOOKSELLER (jokingly): Is that why you're buying so many vampire novels?
CUSTOMER (seriously): You can never be too prepared. ~ Jen Campbell

Novels hadn't interested her for a long time now: not for a moment could she tear her mind away from her own life and concentrate on somebody else. ~ Lydia Chukovskaya

'Don't Look Back' is my first YA contemporary mystery/thriller. It's been described as 'Black Swan' meets 'Pretty Little Liars'. ~ Jennifer Armentrout

The world is not supposed to figure me out, just look to my art, my words, my magic and let it enhance the search within yourself, to figure your damn self out instead. ~ Nikki Rowe

When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now I understand that the Way winds like a river, always changing, ever onward.. My journeys revealed that the Way itself creates the warrior; that every path leads to peace, every choice to wisdom. And that life has always been, and will always be, arising in Mystery. ~ Socrates

Tomorrow is a mystery. Yesterday is history. Live today, it's a gift, that's why they call it present. ~ Aleatha Romig

I define a thriller as a big-stakes, multiple-viewpoint novel involving suspense, action, and mystery, in which the reader doesn't know everything but usually knows more than any single character. ~ F. Paul Wilson

This is what is intended by education as a help to life; an education from birth that brings about a revolution: a revolution that eliminates every violence, a revolution in which everyone will be attracted towards a common center. Mothers, fathers, statesmen all will be centered upon respecting and aiding this delicate construction which is carried on in psychic mystery following the guide of an inner teacher. This is the new shining hope for humanity. It is not so much a reconstruction, as an aid to the construction carried out by the human soul as it is meant to be, developed in all the immense potentialities with which the new-born child is endowed. ~ Maria Montessori

Do we really mean it when we say 'in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, until death do us part or do we add a silent clause, 'unless you shame me or disappoint me?' What is the cost of unconditional love and how capable are we of giving that? ~ Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker

All love tends to become like that which it loves. God loved man; therefore He became man. For nine months her own body was the natural Eucharist, in which God shared communion with human life, thus preparing for that greater Eucharist when human life would commune with the Divine. Mary's joy was to form Christ in her own body; her joy now is to form Christ in our souls. In this Mystery, we pray to become pregnant with the Christ spirit, giving Him new lips with which He may speak of His Father, new hands with which He may feed the poor, and a new heart with which He may love everyone, even enemies. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Suspense consumes your opponents, whereas mystery intrigues your followers. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

If there wasn't mystery, people wouldn't have anything to ponder. If you already knew everything, you wouldn't have anything to think about and life would just be really boring. ~ Emma Roberts

Ben, if you get pee in my brand-new car, I am going to cut your balls off."
Still peeing, Ben looks over at me smirking. "You´re gonna need a hell of a big knife, bro. ~ John Green

Praying to God involves both us and God. God wants us to participate in what he is doing, and for sure one of the main ways we participate in what he is doing is by prayer. We can also participate in what he is doing by feeding the hungry and helping the poor and caring for the sick and giving of our resources to those who have little. God wants us to partner with him. So there is a paradox at work, and a mystery. On the one hand, the Bible says that apart from God we can do nothing. And yet, on the other hand, God invites us to do some things with him. This is at the heart of the mystery of prayer. God wants us to use our faith and to pray. But we can focus so much on the importance of our faith and our prayers that we forget about God and think it is our faith and our prayers that perform the miracle, rather than the God to whom we pray and in whom we have faith as we pray. ~ Eric Metaxas

Through the study of fossils I had already been initiated into the mysteries of prehistoric creations. ~ Pierre Loti

I rock in his arms under the stars and the blanket of night air, unwilling or unable to tear myself away. ~ Lisa Daily

There are no coincidences, only mysteries that haven't been solved, clues that haven't been placed. Most are blind to the language of the bird overhead, the leaf in our path, the phonographic record stuck in a groove, the unknown caller on the phone. They don't see the omens. They don't know the signs. ~ Sara Gran

On a piece of wasteland in Leeds I once saw a used condom in the grass. A dead and sordid thing. And yet to my thirteen-year-old mind the whole mystery of life seemed to stream through it. Nothing I've seen since has been so eloquent of the thrilling and terrifying mysteries of life. ~ Glenn Haybittle

As I trotted down the hall, Fritz was holding the street door open and three people were entering in the shape of a sandwich – a dick, Zorka, and another dick. ~ Rex Stout

In the Eleusinian mysteries, they would always warn people, "if you go in here, your ego will die. You're going to have to confront all your past hang-ups, strip them off, and be a changed person." One emperor of Rom who wanted to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries said, "That's interesting, I approve of what you're doing, but I don't want to be changed. ~ Timothy Leary

The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens. As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved, it's the citizen who changes things. I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement. ~ Jose Saramago

A lot of Chinese martial arts films were based on Chinese martial arts novels. And these novels created a world of putting history, calligraphy, and martial arts into one. ~ Donnie Yen

[Speaking of marriage and family] In this entire world there is not a more perfect, more complete image of God, Unity and Community. There is no other human reality which corresponds more, humanly speaking, to that divine mystery. ~ Pope John Paul II

Read history, works of truth, not novels and romances ~ Robert E.Lee

Religious experience involves an encounter with the holy, the mystery of the totally other that opens like a chasm before humans in unexpected ways, making impossible the denial of its presence. ~ Luke Timothy Johnson

The confessing church of American Ragamuffins needs to join Magdalene and Peter in witnessing that Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands. ~ Brennan Manning

Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very String Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions? ~ Terry Pratchett

Life: It is better not to wrap philosophy around such an inconceivable evolving beautiful mystery. If based on perception, alone; whatever the conclusion - it is still guessing. ~ T.F. Hodge

Maybe life isn't for everyone,
Sometimes you do things to start anew life.
But the new paths will always bring you back to the old ones or just show a glimpse of it so that you again go through those thousand memories.
and no matter how much you try to get rid of the old shoe, Life will bring you to a certain point
where you would want to throw off the new shoe and wear the old one back again..
and Maybe, maybe you would or maybe you would not.
For who knows, We re mysterious beings in these mysterious world trying to figure out our existence. ~ Alamvusha

There are lots of authentic, moving characters in so-called systems novels, just as there are certainly deep structural ideas in some character-driven novels. ~ Dana Spiotta