Literary Thriller Quotes & Sayings

As so many commitments
demand your time
Or your shut-eye important be,
Your attraction to me must
in some way lack,
Such a pity to spend time
on thee. — Charlotte M. Liebel

The two smallest boys were cut down first, bodies bounding in different directions as they were shot from opposite sides of the field, like pinballs caught in a tight corner. — Cole Alpaugh

Her eyes were a rich dark brown that were so deep, they reminded me of my sleepless nights, awake, staring into complete darkness. I felt compelled to look deeper, searching for something inside her, but her soul was covered and her eyes would not show me. — Cristina Martin

No one in that city understands, Gil, because it doesn't matter to them anymore. They've never learned to fear the steel and the men who carry it, and none of them ever will, because they don't have to. Because in this place I've seen, men like that don't exist anymore. We don't exist anymore.
Sounds like a beautiful fucking place. How do I get there? Ringil grinned fiercely up at the Kiriath clan captain. Oh wait - you're going to tell me the rents are sky-high, right? And how am I going to earn a living if they keep their swords in a museum? — Richard K. Morgan

The slick concrete reflected the facades of the work weary - grey, cracked and old,
but more importantly, trodden upon. — Martin Hopkins

No one can change the timing set by God — Sunday Adelaja

Memory is an artist, an impressionist. She adds colour, sound, smell and emotion to events at her whim. She adds, subtracts and embellishes until the event she started documenting is quite unrecognisable to the others who also experienced it, but at the same time, is more truthful to the owner of the memory. There is no reality. There are only impres- sions of past events, made by a million selves, all interacting with each other, vying for superiority. Reality doesn't exist, perhaps in the end, that's my only truth. — Nigel Jay Cooper

All the films are hits before you turn the camera on. It's only in the execution that they fail. I've been less than happy with the way a couple of films were edited, but it's a director's prerogative and you gotta go with it. — Bruce Willis

I'm equally sure, however, that I won't walk into a lamp-post while reading {literature}, like I did with {a legal thriller} all those years ago; you don't walk into lamp-posts when you're reading literary novels, do you? — Nick Hornby

Underground, in the dark wet hole that was home to the spiders and the rats, something moved. It had no right to be down there but it belonged nowhere else. Half drowned half alive it pushed the water ahead of it into the culverts and drains as it passed.
Right under the city and out into the suburbs and fields these tunnels fed into the river and the network of canals that had fed the industrial revolution. A thousand eyes, some blinded, that had never seen the sun strained in the soiled darkness. It struggled on and it listened with a thousand ears not its own and it cried. — Karl P.T. Walsh

The Professor is coming... — M.K. Hopkins

Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right. There's Owl. Owl hasn't exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There's Rabbit. He hasn't Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan. There's Kanga. She isn't Clever, Kanga isn't, but she would be so anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to Do without thinking about it. And then there's Eeyore. And Eeyore is so miserable anyhow that he wouldn't mind about this. — A.A. Milne

Neal fished around in a bag, removed something and handed it to me. It was a forky thing, but with a round depression. "What the fuck is this?" "It's a spork. — Douglas Coupland

Jesus tended to honor the losers of this world, not the winners. Our modern culture extravagantly rewards beauty, athletic skill, wealth, and artistic achievement, qualities which seemed to impress Jesus not at all. — Philip Yancey

And in a land accustomed to so much anguish, Chase tried to be careful with words. His soccer moms began assigning
nicknames during the first day of official practice: Difom, Kakas, Kochma, and Maldyok, which roughly translated to Deformed, Carcass, Nightmare, and Bad Eye.
He made a new rule regarding nicknames. — Cole Alpaugh

The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you know who you are. — J.P. Bloch

Noriega wound up like a baseball pitcher on top of the bed and hurled the small gun, but was low and outside for a ball. His tight-fitting house dress was bunched up high on his chubby thighs, exposing olive drab underwear.
I see London, I see France, I see a crazy dictator's underpants!
Chase's thoughts raced. — Cole Alpaugh

The Kahn spoke to his disfigured expert. Mal-Greb, confused at first, listened, nodded and bowed his head like the slave he was. Jani Beg momentarily seized with energy grabbed the smaller man by the shoulders and breathed into his face "Hurl them back to Hell!"
The wild look in the Kahn's eyes was something that Mal-Greb understood.
And so they began. — Karl P.T. Walsh

Limp finally spoke. Do you think you could kill a person and not get all crazy about it? — Cole Alpaugh

The thriller is the most popular literary genre of the 20th century. — Ken Follett

I do not seek to walk in the paths of the wise men of old, I seek what they sought. — Matsuo Basho

Yet there is no acceptance to be found in my heart. This death is unfair. Ignoble, and not justifiable by any measure of rationale. No battle is worth this. No ideals, no political cause, and no bounty. Being here is a mistake. Dying is a mistake. Twenty-two years has not been enough. "--Luke, a Civil War soldier — Diane Ryan

Good. I need to arm up. All I've got is a gun with four bullets, and it's a really embarrassing gun. — Craig Schaefer

Join us. Play the game. It will bring you an untold number of rewards and you will finally have some direction and purpose in your lives. Take control of yourselves and those around you. Bend them to your will and all worldly pleasures will be yours ... — Martin Hopkins

Sometimes, at the least opportune times, the past is an insomniac, alive and well. — Courtney Cole

Before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol. It's true. Well, they don't want you to get an infection, and you can see their point. They don't want some guy go to hell and be sick. — George Carlin

Underneath the ground
you can't hear a sound
not even the sweet falling rain
you might forget about tomorrow
forget about the swallows
but they won't forget you
they won't forget you — Karl P.T. Walsh

My style is to keep folks in place who are good managers and want to win. — Tom Hicks

Anything that doesn't fit this mode has been shoved into an area of lesser solemnity called 'genre fiction,' and it is here that the spy thriller and the crime story and the adventure story and the supernatural tale and the science fiction, however excellently written, must reside, sent to their rooms, as it were, for the misdemeanor of being enjoyable in what is considered a meretricious way. They invent, and we all know they invent, at least up to a point, and they are, therefore, not about 'real life,' which ought to lack coincidences and weirdness and action-adventure, unless the adventure story is about war, of course, where anything goes, and they are, therefore, not solid. — Margaret Atwood

The woman who looks back at me from my bathroom mirror is sliding toward her mid-fifties. She'd better be careful- she's getting old.
I myself am about thirty. I've been thirty for about twenty-three years now. — Cheryl Peck

Some people say he engineered his own arrest to gain an insight into modern methods of policing for a thriller he had planned. But you know what happens to artistic rats in prison: they have their rectums stretched, and not by overindulgence in Michelin-star food; they have their columns examined, and not by internet humorists or a qualified medical practitioner. I'm sure Rat knew this, too. Although he likes to accumulate a wide general knowledge, he would rather have a narrow rectum. A colon comes in handy here, before examples: two dots on top of one other, like the cowboys who copulate on Brokeback Mountain, on a slope so far away you need binoculars to see them properly. In prison there are too many insights and examples. Rat would never risk it. — Graham Spaid

I love outsider stories. And I also like a lot of genre fiction, too. So I wanted to write a literary book that flirted with thriller and fantasy and even science fiction. I wanted the coming-of-age story and the love story to be about "outsiderdom" - one of the themes I am most interested in. — Porochista Khakpour

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe. — Barbara De Angelis

This is the worst time to miss a bill. Pay down any large credit card or other large revolving accounts if you can, because high balances will hurt your credit rating. And avoid opening any other accounts before the loan you're pursuing is closed. — Craig Watts

Nothing is 'wrong' with me, Dan. What's wrong with you? she said in the same eerily quiet voice, dark eyes fixated on Dan, as she breathed heavily. — Martin Hopkins

Many Scandinavian writers who had made their name in literary fiction felt they wanted to have a go at the crime novel to show they could compete with the best. If Salman Rushdie had been Norwegian, he would definitely have written at least one thriller. — Jo Nesbo