Murder Mysteries Quotes & Sayings

People named Tinkerbell name their daughters Susan. — Neil Gaiman

I started writing in my 20s. I just wanted to write, but I didn't have anything to write about, so in the beginning, I wrote entertainments - mainly murder mysteries. — Alan Furst

It has long been a source of wonder to me why the leading criminological writers
men like Edmund Lester Pearson, H. B. Irving, Filson Young, Canon Brookes, William Bolitho, and Harold Eaton
have not devoted more space to the Greene tragedy; for here, surely, is one of the outstanding murder mysteries of modern times
a case practically unique in the annals of latter-day crime. — S. S. Van Dine

In case the term is unfamiliar, the best description ever for 'cozies' is 'murder mysteries where no one cares who got killed because they're all distracted by cooking new recipes or following intricate handicraft instructions.'"--The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap — Wendy Welch

In the nineteen-thirties ... the most casual reader of murder mysteries could infallibly detect the villain, as soon as there entered a character who had recently washed his neck and did not commit mayhem on the English language. — Ellen Glasgow

Why are murder mysteries so popular? There's a 3-part "formula" (if you want to call it that) for a genre novel: (1) Someone the reader likes and relates to (2) overcomes increasingly difficult obstacles (3) to reach an important goal. The more important the goal, the stronger the novel. And the most important goal that any of us have is survival. That's why murder mysteries are more gripping than a story titled "Who Stole My TV Set. — Lois Duncan

I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end. — Stephen Sondheim

I had a publishing history of murder mysteries. — Alan Furst

The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a farcical fictional meditation on female beauty structured as a mash-up of an old episode of Friends, a fairy tale and a murder mystery. — Maureen Corrigan

Lady Sylvia McCordle: Mr Weissman
Tell us about the film you're going to make.
Morris Weissman: Oh, sure. It's called "Charlie Chan In London". It's a detective story.
Mabel Nesbitt: Set in London?
Morris Weissman: Well, not really. Most of it takes place at a shooting party in a country house. Sort of like this one, actually. Murder in the middle of the night, a lot of guests for the weekend, everyone's a suspect. You know, that sort of thing.
Constance: How horrid. And who turns out to have done it?
Morris Weissman: Oh, I couldn't tell you that. It would spoil it for you.
Constance: Oh, but none of us will see it. — Julian Fellowes

Forgetfulness can sometimes bring freedom of a sort — Neil Gaiman

It's an honour to have such a wonderful international cast on board for this world famous murder mystery. Writer Stewart Harcourt has created an exquisite script. His attention to detail is impeccable. — David Suchet

Life is not like a murder mystery. In mysteries people always do the same thing. Then when some little thing is out of line, some wise-guy amateur detective makes big deductions. In real life, people don't do the same things all the time. They do different things at different times. In real life, people are crazy. — Isaac Asimov

I always loved watching and reading family-friendly mysteries growing up, like the shows Murder, She Wrote and Nancy Drew, and am thrilled to be bringing these New York Times best-selling books right into your living room on the small screen. — Candace Cameron

It had always been a part of his job which he found difficult, the total lack of privacy for the victim. Murder stripped away more than life itself. The body was parceled, labelled, dissected; address books, diaries, confidential letters, every part of the victim's life was sought out and scrutinized. Alien hands moved among the clothes, picked up and examined the small possessions, recorded and labelled for public view the sad detritus of sometimes pathetic lives. — P.D. James

People who would never sneer at sci-fi and murder mysteries have no trouble damning the whole romance genre without reading one. — Lauren Willig

You can approach 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' in a variety or combination of ways: as a startlingly eccentric hobby; as a series of unresolved murder mysteries; as the manifestation of one woman's peculiar psychic life; as a lesson in forensics; as a metaphor for the fate of women; as a photographic study. — Robert Gottlieb

San Francisco would be a good location for a murder mystery. — Alfred Hitchcock

Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional
to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. 'The detective story,' observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, 'is a tragedy with a happy ending.' A storybook detective starts by confronting us with a murder and ends by absolving us of it. He clears us of guilt. He relieves us of uncertainty. He removes us from the presence of death. — Kate Summerscale

In the absence of any concrete evidence. I plump for Leonard Stock as the murderer. First, because he's the most unlikely person, and as anyone who has ever read a murder story knows, it's always the most unlikely person who turns out to have done the deed--and fifty thousand authors can't be wrong. — M.M. Kaye

Quote taken from Chapter 1:
"The police should be in it, not us. We're out of here." Bill did an about-face to retrace their route to the door.
Piper whipped out a hand and snagged him by the shirttail. Her tone returned to crisp and decisive. "Slow down, Roadrunner. I'm not ready to leave. We've got work to do."
Incredulous, he stared gape-mouthed at her. "You better explain," he said.
She wiggled her nose. "I'm growing nosier by the second about the circumstances surrounding Anna's murder. — Ed Lynskey

You write the facts as you see them, and there isn't a lull with a lot of description. No wonder people like to write about murder mysteries and dead bodies! — Lily King

Paperbacks weren't considered real books in the book trade. Up till then it was just murder mysteries, potboilers, 25-cent pocket books sold in newsstands. When the New York publishers started publishing quality paperbacks, there was no place to buy them. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It occurred to me then that the man might not be mad; I found this far more disquieting than the alternative. — Neil Gaiman

She understood now why her friend Elizabeth, with her near-genius, analytical mind gave wide berth to murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and horror stories, and read only romance novels. Because, by God, when a woman picked up one of those steamy books, she had a firm guarantee that there would be a Happily-Ever-After. That though the world outside those covers could bring such sorrow and disappointment and loneliness, between those covers, the world was a splendid place to be. — Karen Marie Moning

Zeus Is Dead is full of laugh-out-loud moments, lashings of sly wit, moan-worthy puns, and a complex, fast-paced storyline. There aren't very many humorous fantasy murder mysteries out there, especially not as intricately constructed as this one. Michael G. Munz takes a 'What if,' and runs with it like a toddler with Mom's smart phone. The guffaw-worthy throwaway bits will remind you of Douglas Adams. A very enjoyable read. — Jody Lynn Nye

Murder mysteries are puzzles that are fun to resolve. — Kathy Reichs

They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself
ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide. — Walker Percy

Whenever summer rolls around I begin to realize that I'm a complete and utter book snob. In relation to reading, I have absolutely no guilty pleasures at all. No graphic novels. No murder mysteries. My summer read is really no different from my winter read. I know many bookshops and magazines would have me believe that our summer forays are different, but literature is literature, and unfortunately snobbery is snobbery. — Colum McCann

On the advice of my U.K. publishers, I chose a sexless anonymity and published my first five books under the semi-pseudonym, S. J. Bolton. I was happy. I could hide behind a genderless, classless persona and let my creepy, psychological murder-mysteries speak for themselves. — Sharon Bolton

I don't think the Barbara Vines are mysteries in any sense. The Barbara Vine is much more slowly paced. It is a much more in-depth, searching sort of book; it doesn't necessarily have a murder in it. — Ruth Rendell

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

Quote taken from Chapter 1 of The Corpse Wore Gingham:
"You love to figure out things as much as I do," Piper said.
"Like what?" Bill asked.
"You fix broken stuff," Piper replied.
"Repairing a broken toaster or steam iron is far different than unraveling a murder mystery," Bill said. — Ed Lynskey

Mysteries include so many things: the noir novel, espionage novel, private eye novels, thrillers, police procedurals. But the pure detective story is where there's a detective and a criminal who's committed a murder and leaves clues for the detective and the careful reader to find. — Otto Penzler

It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it. — Steve McConnell

My dad liked more macho adventure books like Shogun or spy novels. My mother reads murder mysteries. In fact, so does her mother, my grandma. That's where I trace the familial line of murder mystery obsession. — Christopher Bollen

In the detective story, as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the ritual of time) are desirable. Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder. The country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood (but not too well-to-do-or there will be a suspicion of ill-gotten gains) better than a slum. The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet."

(The guilty vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict, Harper's Magazine, May 1948) — W. H. Auden

My goal in life is to get the federal government down to half its present size and under control, and then I can write murder mysteries. — Grover Norquist

A detective with his murder mystery, a chemist seeking the structure of a new compound, use little of the formal and logical modes of reasoning. Through a series of intuitions, surmises, fancies, they stumble upon the right explanation, and have a knack of seizing it when it once comes within reach. — Gilbert N. Lewis

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries. — Denise Mina

He told me he was used to getting what he wanted. — Celia Conrad

I spent a lot of time at my grandparents in the school holidays, and the only books in the house were a copy of the Bible and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage.' I developed a taste for murder mysteries and then later discovered libraries, second-hand bookshops, and jumble sales. — Val McDermid

Curiosity, easily frightened, takes refuge in puzzles, murder mysteries, and spectator sports. — Mason Cooley

Perhaps it is true that all that happens is in accordance with Your will, and thus it is good. But sometimes You leave blood on Your instruments. — Neil Gaiman

Here's the truth, simply stated ... bookstores are suffering from a serious crisis of falling sales. Don't believe a single zero of all those editions claimed to be 100,000! 40,000! ... even 400 copies! just for the suckers! Alack! ... Alas! ... only love and romance ... and even then! ... manage to keep selling ... and a few murder mysteries ... — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Within the same hour as the murder took place, Isabel Trumbo sat in her armchair dozing, the Alaskan Outdoor magazine on her lap. Her kid sister Alma fidgeted in the other armchair, from time to time picking up her newspaper folded over to the day's crossword puzzle. — Ed Lynskey

Sometimes, a scene goes on too long and, with this being a suspense story and murder mystery that you're trying to discover through her heightened paranoia, you don't want scenes that take you on a tangent. Sometimes, you love those scenes, but you know that it's better not to be in the overall film. So, I'm not sad that they're not in the main movie, but I do think it's fun for people to get to watch them, if they want to. — Catherine Hardwicke

I read murder mysteries. I exercise 40 minutes a day. I watch videotapes while I exercise. I listen to audiotapes when I am in my car. And I try to stay in three different centuries. — Grover Norquist

Then, like a born and bred asshole, he added to the sheriff, He writes murder mysteries. — Josh Lanyon

As much as I adore Agatha Christie - and I think people make this claim about murder mysteries in general - it's often a very conservative mode of storytelling. Usually it's the greedy, climbing, new-money slimeball who wants to take from the aristocracy. — Christopher Bollen

Writing mysteries lets me get away with murder. I think 'the mystery' may be the greatest form for social criticism, simply because it is pedestrian. — Gregory McDonald

All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James. — Donna Leon

I don't have a whole bunch of literary connections. I don't write reviews or attend writer's conferences. I'm kind of shy and don't want to go to a party. I just want to stay home and read my murder mysteries and try to write and cook dinner. — Susanna Kaysen