Colin Dexter Quotes & Sayings

He'd no time for reports. He suspected that about 95% of the written word was never read by anyone anyway. — Colin Dexter

You've never seen any evidence of drugs - any packets of drugs? Crack? Speed? Ecstasy? Anything? Anything at all?" Had she? "No," she said. Almost truthfully. "You've never smelt anything suspicious?" "I wouldn't know what they smell like, drugs," she — Colin Dexter

I think that you've got to be prepared to write a load of nonsense to start with and then you can tart it up. The business of getting going, getting started, is enormously important, and this can be physical. Solvitur Ambulando as the Romans used to say, which means the solution comes through walking. — Colin Dexter

I write every day when I'm at home - trying to catch up with correspondence. — Colin Dexter

This was exactly why holidays were so valuable, he told himself: they allowed you to stand back a bit, and see where you were going rusty. — Colin Dexter

He sighed and knew that life was full of 'if only' for everyone — Colin Dexter

He poured himself a good measure of Glenfiddich; and shortly thereafter fell deeply asleep in the chair for more than two hours. Bliss. — Colin Dexter

He was somewhat of a loner by temperament
because though never wholly happy when alone, he was usually slightly more miserable when with other people. — Colin Dexter

It is strange to relate (for a man in his profession) that in addition to incurable acrophobia, arachnophobia, myophobia, and ornithophobia, Morse also suffered from necrophobia; and had he known what awaited him now, it is doubtful whether he would have dared to view the horridly disfigured corpse at all. — Colin Dexter

Though I am still ... exceedingly puzzled as to why our murderer should decide to draw almost inevitable attention to himself by wearing such a conspicuous pair of plimsolls and running around Burford for two and a half hours. — Colin Dexter

Those who are absent, by its means become present: correspondence is the consolation of life. - VOLTAIRE, Philosophical Dictionary — Colin Dexter

The secret of a happy life, Lewis, is to know when to stop and then to go that little bit further. — Colin Dexter

Walters looked quizzically at Morse, who sat reading one of the glossy 'porno' magazines he had brought from upstairs.
"You still sex-mad, I see, Morse," said the surgeon.
"I don't seem to be able to shake it off, Max." Morse turned over a page. "And you don't improve much either, do you? You've been examining all our bloody corpses for donkey's years, and you still refuse to tell us when they died. — Colin Dexter

And Lewis felt excitement, and gratification. Somebody - some — Colin Dexter

During the few minutes that Lewis was away, Morse was acutely conscious of the truth of the proposition that the wider the circle of knowledge the greater the circumference of ignorance. — Colin Dexter

Was he really looking forward to it? They were usually a bit of anticlimax, these things. Stillit would do him good. Or serve him right — Colin Dexter

She had the inestimable merit of being interesting. — Colin Dexter

I always drink at lunchtime. It helps my imagination. — Colin Dexter

Morse stared morosely at the blotting paper. It's just not my sort of case, Lewis. I know it's not a very nice thing to say, but I just get on better when we've got a body - a body that died from unnatural causes. That's all I ask. And we haven't got a body. — Colin Dexter

No, Lewis. Unlike you, I've lived a very sheltered life. I have tried to get invited along to one of these porno-parties, but everybody seems to think I'm above such things. — Colin Dexter

was with Ashenden that Morse's attention was immediately — Colin Dexter

The coolness of the wall mirror. He — Colin Dexter

Morse firmly believed that there was nothing so unsatisfactory as this kind of halfway house pornography; he liked it hot or not at all. — Colin Dexter

Clever people seem not to feel the natural pleasure of bewilderment, and are always answering questions when the chief relish of a life is to go on asking them (Frank Moore Colby) — Colin Dexter

Morse poured himself a can of beer. Champagne's a lovely drink, but it makes you thirsty, doesn't it? — Colin Dexter

As a boy, he had been moved by those words of the dying Socrates, suggesting that if death were just one long, unbroken, dreamless sleep, then a greater boon could hardly be bestowed upon mankind. — Colin Dexter

My life will not be significantly impoverished if I never see another Shakespearian comedy. — Colin Dexter

There's always time for one more pint. - Chief Inspector Morse — Colin Dexter