Mystery Thriller Quotes

I always wanted to eat with a Negro," Grandma said.
Yeah, well I always wanted to eat with a boney-assed old white woman," Lula said. "So I guess this works out good. ~ Janet Evanovich

He avoided small talk at the best of times and this, unquestionably, was a million horrific miles from the best of times. ~ Jane Harper

Sometimes the closer you are to the truth, the harder it is to see. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Olivia was a quiet child, but her lack of response was uncharacteristic. She stared at her mother with wide, frightened eyes, her mouth open, a hollow cave devoid of words. Something was wrong. Very wrong. ~ Caroline Mitchell

Life is volatile. ~ Robert J. Pajer

Maybe the best reputation is no reputation. Maybe it's best not to care whatsoever how people see you. Maybe the only thing that really matters is how you see yourself. ~ Sara Shepard

I want to introduce my readers to people they may never have met, take them places they may never have visited, and present them with situations they may never have encountered. ~ J. Everett Prewitt

If he can't reach you he can't hit you
If he can't hit you he can't hurt you ~ Arun D. Ellis

I look away, but we've caught each other. And I know this wasn't just a ghost story to him, even if it was to the others. ~ Jennifer Walkup

She would not have another man push her aside like some appetizer, there to wet his whistle only to be left once the main dish arrived.

No more. She pushed her thumb into his throat a little harder. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

It's a hard thing to accept that someone wants you dead. It forces you to decide if you have anything worth living for. ~ Scott Overton

Three kilometres beneath the camp, sub-glacial Lake Ellsworth, and whatever secret it may hold, is sealed within a frozen tomb. ~ L.A. Larkin

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

There are a few rules in investigations, and one is to never cringe at the person's appearance that you're about to pump for info. ~ Ruth Bainbridge

Fuck you! Someone has tortured and killed one of your girls and you couldn't give a damn? I thought you were supposed to protect them, to be their guardian. Isn't that what pimps do?' Garcia's face flared red. ~ Chris Carter

The thing is, Sara, writing's scary. You have to be prepared to go deep......And when your brain's shouting, 'No, no, no, I'm not going to think that thought; it's too dirty, it's too scary, it's too painful,' that's when you must make yourself think it and make yourself write it. ~ Felicity Everett

He was pushing fifty, with a face life had chewed on, and long wisps of graying hair parted low on one side and combed over his balding pate. ~ Patricia Cornwell

If you can't be kind, be quiet. ~ Monica Early

Either I've got a wart on my nose they find curious, or I've grown a tail, Albie Merani muttered to himself. Just then he thought. I'd better get a move on, got work to do. He hurried across to some stairs, heading down deeper into station, then followed the signs to the pod station. ~ R.W. Rivers

He would always be around you, not in these words or paintings, but in your heart. He will always be in happy memories. You can't cage his worth in few pages and colors. ~ Vidushi Gupta

You must push through the negativity and self-criticism that dam up your creativity and just let it flow. Be your authentic self. Write or sing or dance or paint with your whole being, without guardedness or cynicism and without trying to second-guess an audience. ~ Felicity Everett

Even if one turns away from harmony for just one night, suffering ensues. ~ I.J. Parker

I thought it would be quite a challenge to direct a mystery thriller. I hadn't really done something like that. ~ Catherine Hardwicke

Why did you shoot him?"
"You weren't around," I replied, my teeth gritted in pain. "If you'd been here I'd have shot you instead. ~ John Connolly

What was that feeling in my chest? Regret? Regret that I'd left last night after our kiss--that I'd pulled away before he could know how much I truly wanted him. ~ Krystine Kelly

Red glowing eyes... No one could see her. No one could hear her. No one was coming to save her. Because Death had come sooner than expected. ~ Humairaa Anseline

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

Martina Green: Today is Tuesday, February eleventh, and Zoe Spanos has been missing for six weeks to the day. Last Friday, the Herron Mills Village PD declared Zoe a runaway, and that's why I'm here, talking to you. Because if you know Zoe, you know she didn't run away.

Zoe Spanos is missing. And we're missing Zoe ~ Kit Frick

No one mentioned the sad piece of tinsel, naked in places, hanging across the chimneybreast, nor that Twelfth Night was a week ago. No one mentioned the two Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. No one mentioned them because inside they were blank. ~ Andrew Barrett

I like B. Wooster the way he is. Lay off him, I say. Don't try to change him, or you may lose the flavour. Even when we were merely affianced, I recalled, this woman had dashed the mystery thriller from my hand, instructing me to read instead a perfectly frightful thing by a bird called Tolstoy. At the thought of what horrors might ensue after the clergyman had done his stuff and she had a legal right to bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, the imagination boggled. It was a subdued and apprehensive Bertram Wooster who some moments later reached for the hat and light overcoat and went off to the Savoy to shove food into the Trotters. The ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Just making the cement now, only takes five minutes."
"I did it in four once," Pauly whispered boastfully to Johnny, "but if I'm honest, I was never completely happy that it set properly."
"Who was it for?"
"Big Joe the Hammer."
"Oh, yeah," Johnny nodded. "Didn't I hear he was spotted in Vegas a few weeks back?"
Pauly nodded morosely.
"Yeah, like I said, I didn't think it had set properly. ~ Clare Havens

Books said nothing for a few minutes. Then, gazing out over the water, watching a sailboat heeled over, cutting across the bay, he asked, "What next?"
I said evenly, "I'm going to kill the two men who murdered Carolyn. ~ David Grant Urban

What could they have found in those pages that'd invoke such desperate and extreme acts, including the assassination of a pope? ~ Peter J. Tanous

My dreams come alive in my books. ~ Lynn A. Dalton

Simon's brain tried to comprehend the situation. 'Was an international supermodel really holding Doc Gutson, leader of the infamous Bloodworth Gang, captive? ~ Clare Havens

I felt it burn all the way down my throat and into my stomach. I felt like I was dying. ~ Jeannie Walker

Life is a lonely place to be without a true friend by your side. ~ Akecheta Lung - Once Upon A Pledge

MISSION ONE ACCOMPLISHED. The next challenge was bringing in online gamers to join him on his crusade. How was he going to convince online gamers to leave the privacy of their virtual world to work with others in the real world?
Harry Doubt ~ Anne-Rae Vasquez

It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.

---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ~ Donna Cummins

When asked out, I am hesitant, my glance straying to the beeefy, 400-page mystery thriller lounging seductively on the nightstand next to my bed, with come hither eyes that promise an exciting evening of one climax after another. Never had a chance. Staying in Saturday night. ~ Ava Zavora

...Miss Seeley came in.... She was a little older, a little thinner. Her tailored pinstriped suit emphasized the boniness of her figure. But she still wore hopeful white ruffles at her wrists and throat. ~ Ross Macdonald

Kevin's eyes shot open to complete darkness. What'd happened? His memory was returning slowly. He was now remembering. An ambush outside his apartment in the Vatican. ~ Peter J. Tanous

What's the best place to hide a car? In an airport long-term lot. Like where's the best place to hide a grain of sand? On the beach ~ Lee Child

Do it once and do it right and do it quickly ~ Lee Child

If my life were a movie ... the title sequence would start out like a typical high school story, but then reveal that something's amiss. There'd be a tight shot, or piece of dialogue, or something that would make the viewer uncomfortable. Something to give them that prickly feeling.
-Dez ~ Dawn Klehr

Whatever was in that document had caused the death of the leader of the Catholic Church. Who'd be next? Calvi shuddered. His life's work was safe-guarding this document. Whatever its purpose or mystery, it was his solemn and sole mission to protect it. Even if it meant giving up his life for it. ~ Peter J. Tanous

The blank sheet stares up at me, its emptiness like a slap. Those were the last words Ginny ever wrote before she and her family were murdered. ~ Jennifer Walkup

Good always has a price, Marcus. Evil comes free. ~ Donato Carrisi

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

And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? ~ Peter J. Tanous

The corpse opened his eyes. ~ Donato Carrisi

It takes a certain kind of man willing to work long, grueling hours in a career offering few rewards. ~ Jon Michaelsen

(Out of the Shadow is) Exceptional....Meticulously plotted, beautifully paced, its an intelligent, fascinating story that draws you in.
I couldn't put it down, a great read..
Winn, masterfully weaves together the lives of characters into a rich and vivid tapestry,
all the while exploring complex human emotions.
A definite page turner.

Patricia O'Halloran ~ J.K. Winn

I've deprived my family in order to buy books. No doubt there is a special punishment in hell for such self-indulgence. Perhaps I shall be struck with blindness among the rarest known to men. ~ I.J. Parker

I try to read and write something interesting every day. ~ Dave Vizard

If everything comes in your way just the way you wanted them to ,then you're probably in the wrong lane. ~ ARKOPAUL

Death lurked everywhere. Death was alive and well. ~ Eric Rickstad

Listen to me," Audra said. "Listen good. You don't get to touch me anymore. Not ever. You don't own me, or my children. We are not your possessions. You never really loved our children, but I do. Now, I'm going to find Sean and Louise. You can either help me or get out of my way. Which is it? ~ Haylen Beck

What to do? Fight it or play along? Was God behind it? ~ Peter J. Tanous

All fear was, in the end, fear of death. Once you knew you were dying, there was nothing left fear. It gave you the last great gift, infinite courage. ~ Saul Black

I loved all the Hardy Boy books. Once I collected my paperboy money each Friday I'd walk into town, make the rounds of all the local thrift shops (where you could buy a used hardback for a quarter.) I'd always get excited swinging open the front cover of a newly discovered book in the series. Let's solve a mystery! And investigate the long-abandoned water tower north of town. They were a lot of fun. And science fiction, although these were paperbacks. I stopped going to church when I was about ten. I'd get dressed and go out the front door telling my mom I was going to church, but I'd have a science fiction paperback jammed in the back pocket of my trousers. Once I got near the church (St. Mary's on Greenwich Avenue), I'd veer down a side street, pull out my book, and stumble along the sidewalks for an hour, visiting another planet, sometimes another galaxy. My mother eventually found out about my deception - a friend told her she had spotted me walking, reading, when I was supposed to be at mass. I explained to my mother I didn't want to attend church anymore, and she accepted that. If it made her sad, she never showed me. She was actually an incredibly good mother, which I realize more and more as I age. ~ Ralph Robert Moore

Love has many mysteries, and this first infatuation is also a mystery, even if a minor one - most people who rush into it get engaged or indulge in other foolish pranks, and then it's all over with the twinkling of an eye and they don't know what they have conquered or what they have lost. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Autumn imagined the girl, with long dark hair in plaits and a red cape, running through the wood and stopping because she hears something: soft paws crushing damp moss, an animal breathing. She runs on. She's frightened. She knows what will happen is inevitable. All the while the wolf is keeping pace with her, watching her, its pink tongue lolling over its sharp, white teeth. Waiting for its chance. ~ Sanjida Kay

The things you don't know or understand are as important as your desire to know them. This is the relationship of man to mystery. ~ Carew Papritz

Peeing on a stick is not as easy as it sounds! #WhenRavensFall ~ Matilda Wren

'True Detective' is a densely layered work with resonant details and symbology and rich characterization under the guise of one of the forms of this mystery genre. That's what we shoot for. ~ Nic Pizzolatto

I can't reveal the mystery to either saint or sinner; I can't state at length what I've said curtly; I achieve an altered state that I can't explain; I have a secret that I cannot share. ~ Omar Khayyam

That sense of loss grew within the humans who had been left behind, left to live without unicorns. Even the ones who had never seen a unicorn, never heard of a unicorn, felt the passing of something sweet and wonderful. It was as if the air had surrendered a bit of its spice, the water a bit of its sparkle, the night a bit of its mystery. ~ Bruce Coville

I do read P.D. James because she pays much more attention to character, to a particular atmosphere or setting. But most mystery writers, I think, are controlled by the plot. ~ Martha Grimes

Combine two words, Myth and History. What do you get? Mystery. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

On Christmas morning when the beach is calling and the family's gathering and the presents are a mystery (or definitely feels book-shaped anyway), and after the splendour and celebration of Christmas Eve, we don't want Christmas Day to be an anticlimax. We've gifted our Oxfam goats or geese and bought our CWS calendars, and what we'd like, on Christmas Day, what we really want, is for things to be - perfect. Just like the old days. Something new, but also something familiar.
And that's what's so wonderful about the Christmas story, and why preachers penning their reflections approach with trepidation but also with joy: at Christmas, the news is all good. ~ Bronwyn Angela White

The mystery of a person, indeed, is ever divine to him that has a sense for the godlike. ~ Thomas Carlyle

The Eucharist is not only a particularly intense expression of the reality of the Church's life, but also in a sense its fountainhead. The Eucharist feeds and forms the Church: 'Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread' (1 Cor 10:17, RSV). Because of this vital link with the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the mystery of the Church is savored, proclaimed, and lived supremely in the Eucharist. ~ Pope John Paul II

Whenever there is love beyond boundaries ...
Whenever trust flows deeper than oceans ...
Nevertheless, a Trial is born ...
You pass that trial, sacred you shall be ... if you don't, your are immortal !!!! ~ M.W.Latif

It's never too late. ~ John D. Garrison

All my life, I had this idea that if I could unravel the mystery that was my mother, then I could help save her. But it didn't really work. We were close, but she struggled with mental illness and alcoholism, and it was rough at times. ~ Jennifer McMahon

If you like Girl with Dragon Tattoo and Vampires, this is for you! (Kathi Humphries (Design) on 'ORPHANS - Time is running out' by Ian Dewar) ~ Kathi Humphries

What is your name?"
"Again sir, that is no concern of yours."
"A mystery," he said. "I shall have to call you Clorinda."
...
"Judith! What the devil? exclaimed Peregrine. "Has there been an accident?"
"Judith," repeated the gentleman of the curricle pensively. "I prefer Clorinda. ~ Georgette Heyer

At that stage it was generally presumed that I was not someone who was going to Put Faha on the Map and so once the races started I was to share with Dympna Looney the important job of Holding the Ribbon at the finish line, which I didn't think very important but my father said was Homeric, and though I didn't know what that meant it made me feel a little flush of importance. 'Breasting the ribbon, Ruthie,' he said, 'you're the line between one world and another.' He could say things like that. He could say things no other dad could say, and because parents are mysterious anyhow, because they belong in another world, you don't ask, you just nod and feel you've entered a little bit into the mystery yourself. ~ Niall Williams

What's a bigger mystery box than a movie theater? You go to the theater, you're just so excited to see anything - the moment the lights go down is often the best part. ~ J.J. Abrams

After visiting these two places (Berchtesgaden and the Eagle's lair on Obersalzberg) you can easily see how that within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived. He had boundless ambition for his country, which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way that he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him. He had in him the stuff of which legends are made. ~ John F. Kennedy

If something unusual is what you really see and really feel, and if that's what does happen to you in your real life, how is THAT called FICTION? One simple reason... that it's the only way the society would agree to call it "normal," based on the current level of development of their mentality. ~ Sahara Sanders

Sometimes, we are so focused on what we want that we are blind to the things that make us happy. It's just incredible, and when I focus on what is right in front of me, nothing else matters. All my worries vanish. ~ Paige Dearth

It was the smell that hit her first. It was a sterile, antiseptic and very distinctive medical smell, a smell with an underlying metallic reek of blood beneath it. Disturbing as this was, Selena wasn't necessarily shocked. It was a hospital, after all. Just like schools had a tendency to smell like chalk dust and sweat and cafeteria mystery meat, just like auto shops stank of gasoline and rust, hospitals had an odour reflecting their whole purpose, and it was sort of redundant to try and hide it. ~ Rebecca McNutt

Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. ~ Wendell Berry

Step into the mystery of the mind. There are billions of minds, there are billions of selves. There are billions of worlds and dimensions. ~ Frederick Lenz

The immortal sadness of youth possessed her, and the sorrow of which youth is not always conscious, the lucid knowledge of her unsatisfied desires. There was nothing, she thought, that could be trusted; the dearest delight might betray, the gayest friendship open upon a treachery and a martyrdom. Of her friends, of her young male friends especially, pleasant as they were, there was not one, she thought, who held that friendship important for her sake rather than for his own enjoyment. Even that again was but her own selfishness; what right had she to the devotion of any other? And was there any devotion beyond the sudden overwhelming madness of sex? And in that hot airless tunnel of emotion what pleasure was there and what joy? Laughter died there, and lucidity, and the clear intelligence she loved, and there was nothing of the peace for which she hungered. . . . Most of all she hated herself. The dark mystery of being that possessed her held no promise of light, but she turned to it and sank into it content so as to avoid the world. ~ Charles Williams

Most people desperately desire to believe that they are a part of a great mystery, that Creation is a work of grace and glory, not merely the result of random forces colliding. Yet each time that they are given but one reason to doubt, a worm in the apple of the heart makes them turn away from a thousand proofs of the miraculous, whereupon they have a drunkard's thirst for cynicism, and they feed upon despair as a starving man upon a loaf of bread. ~ Dean Koontz

I didn't have much faith in humanity before. I have even less faith now that the world has sh*t the bed." – character quote ~ Andrew Cormier

Do you know what the first poet said about our kind, young Ren? 'Cats are the great mystery, born in that space where shadow meets light ... that borderland of dreams and death, and death and life. No door is closed against us. No secret can defy us. We exist in every world, every universe, every possibility. We cannot be denied, not even by the dead.' We are magnificent, Ren Mormorian. We are fucking glorious. ~ Marjorie M. Liu

No Matter how Poor you're, you'll Survive.
No Matter how Lame you're, you'll Move .
No Matter how Blind you're, you'll Locate your Mouth.
No Matter how Dumb you're, you'll Communicate.
Give Thanks and Praise to the Lord and then you'll feel all right. ~ Mystery Chuks

She probably should have been afraid of him, but he brought her such a sense of well-being that fearing him was impossible. ~ Christine Feehan

The palpable sense of mystery in the desert air breeds fables, chiefly of lost treasure ... It is a question whether it is not better to be bitten by the little horned snake of the desert that goes sidewise and strikes without coiling, than by the tradition of a lost mine. ~ Mary Hunter Austin

I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart. ~ Mary Oliver

But even in Gavle I went on digging into the case."

"I don't suppose that Henrik would ever let up."

"That's true, but that's not the reason. The puzzle about Harriet still fascinates me to this day. I mean... it's like this: every police officer has his own unsolved mystery. I remember from my days in Hedestad how older colleagues would talk in the canteen about the case of Rebecka. There was one officer in particular, a man named Torstensson - he's been dead for years - who year after year kept returning to that case. In his free time and when he was on holiday. Whenever there was a period of calm among the local hooligans he would take out those folders and study them."

"Was that also a case about a missing girl?"

Morell looked surprised. Then he smiled when he realised that Blomkvist was looking for some sort of connection.

"No, that's not why I mentioned it. I'm talking about the soul of a policeman. The Rebecka case was something that happened before Harriet Vanger was even born, and the statute of limitations has long since run out. Sometime in the forties a woman was assaulted in Hedestad, raped, and murdered. That's not altogether uncommon. Every officer, at some point in his career, has to investigate that kind of crime, but what I'm talking about are those cases that stay with you and get under your skin during the investigation. This girl was killed in the most brutal way. The killer tied her up and stuck ~ Stieg Larsson

The spell started to brush across my skin, tasting me, telling me what it wanted....
Nothing compared to power flowing through you, over you, around you. It was a alluring, sensual as it wound through my hair, cuddled with my skin. It wanted me to swirl the power, to tickle it with light and sound, and it sang to me of spells long lost. ~ N.E. Conneely

An astonishing debut. Brilliantly conceived, masterfully written, Stuart Neville's THE TWELVE is both a heart-pounding thriller and a stunning examination of responsibility and revenge. He is going to be a major new voice in suspense fiction. ~ Jeff Abbott

What we essentially want is to draw something unknown to us in all its shadowiness, not something we know in all its illumination. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Now, if either of you should think of something, you ring me up. And, Detective Farthering "-he shook his finger at Drew-" you and that young Dennison scamp mind you don't interfere with police business. Do all the clever thinking you want, and when you get an idea, I'll be happy to hear it. But you let the police do the investigating. Do I make myself clear?"
"Why, Inspector, I never - ~ Julianna Deering

It is only through the mystery of the redeeming Incarnation that a Christian sees the proper dignity of human personality, and what it costs. The idea which he has of it stretches out indefinitely, and only attains the absolute fullness of its significance in Christ. But by the very fact that it is secular and not sacred, this common task does not in the least demand in its beginning a profession of faith in the whole of Christianity from each man. On the contrary, it includes in its characteristic features a pluralism which makes possible the convivium of Christians and non-Christians in one temporal city. ~ Jacques Maritain