Quotes & Sayings About Mystery Novels

Russell, the gallant knight, with sureness of spirit and the smile of the gods, was carrying the woman who raised
him into the rainy night. I was Paladin, Tristan and King David. — James Aura

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

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

One of our fundamental human needs is finding our partner that we hope we will stay with for the rest of our lives. You often find the same search in other genres. The mystery novel has a romance subplot. Literary novels often focus on that relationship but do not often end well. — Lauren Willig

We're Killers On The Keyboard — Cyndi Williams Barnier

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

Never much of a fantasy fan, I knew one thing for certain: Odell Greenry loved Precious every bit as much as Gollum loved his "precious." And while both objects of obsession could be possessed neither could be mastered. — Mandy Broughton

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

Another memory comes, not of the final time I saw Ligeia but a week before she disappeared, something mundane yet vivid. The mystery of memory. There's surely some scientific explanation for why the brain decides Don't let go of this. I've read novels and cannot recall a single character's name and yet I remember a red bicycle glanced once in a hardware-store window, a mole on a stranger's chin, a kitchen match lying beside a hearth. These remain, as does Ligeia reaching into her locker, a book crooked in her arm sliding free. — Ron Rash

Knowledge can be like the skin on the surface of the water in a pond, or it can go all the way down to the mud. It can be the tiny tip of the iceberg or the whole hundred percent. — Siobhan Dowd

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

A good friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move a body. — Steven J. Daniels

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 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 reader is the final arbiter. — Sam Reaves

The M.E. dissected pieces of a corpse to tell a story, while Drayco tried to bring them back from the dead, jagged piece by jagged piece. — B.V. Lawson

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

Crime novels have a clear beginning, middle, and end: a mystery, its investigation, and its resolution. The reader expects events to play out logically and efficiently, and these expectations force the writer to spend a good deal of time working on macrostructure rather than prettifying individual sentences. — Jesse Kellerman

The dark sky seemed to swallow the moon, as Samantha stood alone on the deserted highway. — Grace Willows

Novels shouldn't aspire to answer questions, and I wouldn't presume to offer advice about love or marriage in any case. What's fascinating to me about marriage as a subject for fiction - a subject that fiction has taken on with gusto since the 19th century - is how unknowable other people's relationships are. Even the marriages of your parents, your siblings, your closest friends always remain something of a mystery. Only in fiction can you pretend to know people completely. — Nell Freudenberger

Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference. — Chang-rae Lee

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

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

What I like in novels that I read and enjoy is interplay of theme: the mystery of how we seem to be so separate as human beings. — Sebastian Faulks

When I think of highly plotted novels I think of detective fiction or mystery fiction, the kind of work that always produces a few dead bodies. But these bodies are basically plot points, not worked-out characters. The book's plot either moves inexorably toward a dead body of flows directly from it, and the more artificial the situation the better. Readers can play off their fears by encountering the death experience in a superficial way. A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot, makes it less fearful by containing it in a kind of game format. [from an interview with DeCurtis] — Don DeLillo

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

We all have something special in us, it's a matter of finding it, and knowing what to do with it. — Robert Magarian

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

Yet, the quest for knowledge will overcome us and we must know. And, at last, we must see where the road ends, even if it be the cliff. — Nancy B. Brewer

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

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

He was one of the few men who didn't aspire to be alpha as long as he was in on the hunt. — B.V. Lawson

Jay prepared himself to face the woman who must be at either side of emotions to be with him today - extreme hatred or extreme love. — Mita Jain

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

She raised her head again. "Aren't you supposed to come over all manly man and forbid the little lady from taking such risks with her fragile self?"
"I like my balls right where they are," he said, and she laughed and put her head back down on his chest.
Kate Shugak to Jim Chopin
Though Not Dead — Dana Stabenow

She was a tornado in a skirt. — B.V. Lawson

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

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

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

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

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

She swore she'd never turn into her P.I. father...but that was before she ran over the body. — Lida Sideris

Katherine Heiny's work does something magical: elevates the mundane so that it has the stakes of a mystery novel, gives women's interior lives the gravity they so richly deserve
and makes you laugh along the way. — Lena Dunham

Adventure novels tend to be larger than life. They involve lots of wham-bam and don't usually require a lot of extra thinking on the reader's part the way a mystery or thriller might. — Emlyn Chand

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

Whenever I hear someone make a highly improbable assumption, I always ask, "What's your second choice? — Tom Haikin

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

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

The morning drizzle tightened the District's notorious braided-knot commute into a noose of traffic. - Scott Drayco — B.V. Lawson

This was not a novel. It was a force of nature. Here, in my hands, was the collective imagination of a million teenage girls. Jane Eyre was one of the most famous novels ever written . . . It was the reason that women today secretly fantasized about mystery, danger, and brooding men. Jane Eyre was a twisted Cinderella story . . . — Catherine Lowell

Regretfully, he remained an alluring mystery, with fascinating lines and details she could not help but seek to examine further and memorize. — Lily Blackwood

Your novels show only the tiniest fraction of detective work, the brilliant crime, the tantalizing clues, the dramatic chase, the final battle atop a lofty peak with ocean waves crashing down below, and then ... justice served! If they wrote about the real world, four-fifths of the story would consist of the hero sitting in a library for months and following false leads. — Stefan Petrucha

I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present. — Lisa Gardner

[On Dashiell Hammett:] ... he is so hard-boiled you could roll him on the White House lawn. — Dorothy Parker

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

I hope my novels will allow you to become lost in a world totally unlike the actual world we live in. I work hard to make the words evoke particular images, thoughts, feelings, the mystery of relationships. — Jay Neugeboren

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

Many fiction writers have used novels to promote social change. Why couldn't I? No matter that I had no experience whatsoever writing fiction. I could learn. I decided on mysteries because I love the genre and could envisage a story featuring climate change researchers hounded by climate change doubters. — Charlene D'Avanzo

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

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

There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog. — Vladimir Nabokov

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

The blight of office cubes housing lawyers and lobbyists had popped up like chokeweeds in the manicured lawn of the family homestead. — B.V. Lawson

Patti Callahan Henry seamlessly combines mystery, family love, and personal journey all in one engrossing tale. From the intriguing beginning to the touching ending, The Stories We Tell is filled with the warmth, heart and compassion that have become the trademark of her novels. — Diane Chamberlain

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

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

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

Wendy Doniger has spent decades collecting not only myths from ancient texts but stories of all kinds from novels, movies, newspapers about an old mystery: what has or hasn't happened in bed for centuries. Rich in insights about sex, lies, and personal identity, the result is entertaining, enthralling, and, yes, sexy. — Roberto Calasso

People's lives are delicate; you cannot interfere with them without running the risk of changing them profoundly. A chance remark, a careless involvement, may make the difference between a life of happiness and one of sorrow — Alexander McCall Smith

LIPID (Last Idiot Person I Dated) syndrome: a largely undiagnosed but pervasive disease that afflicts single women. — Lauren Willig

Miss Lasqueti consumed mostly crime thrillers, which constantly seemed to disappoint her. I suspect that for her the world was more accidental than any book's plot. Twice I saw her so irritated by a mystery that she half rose from the shadow of her chair and flung the paperback over the railing into the sea. — Michael Ondaatje

There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book takes the reader into a new world of experience; it is an experiment. A bad book, unless the writing is inept, reinforces the intransigent attitude of the reader not to experiment with a new world. Since there are criminals and psychopaths and sociopaths in all my novels they are in a way psychological thrillers. — John Franklin Bardin

Lottie did everything the old fashioned way, including the bookkeeping, which was fine with me since I knew nothing about accounting software anyway. To me, spreadsheets was what I did on Saturday mornings after washing my bed linen. — Kate Collins

Mr. Wallace, would you please repeat what you recall that this Dylan Jones chap told you. Particularly about what he claimed is needed to free up your inheritance — James Ignizio

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

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

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

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

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

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

The smell of beer surrounded him in a cloud as if he'd been doused in Eau de Frat Boy cologne. — B.V. Lawson

If I'm going down, I'm going down with lipstick on. — Beth Yarnall

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

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

After I had written more than a dozen adult genre novels, an editor I knew in New York asked me to write a mystery for young adults. — Rodman Philbrick

We become attached to certain characters in novels, mostly because they have some mystery attaching to them. We re-read the books, but we're still left wanting to know more. In my own case, it was 'Great Expectations' and Miss Havisham in particular. Luckily, writers have the option of making up the knowledge that reading doesn't supply. — Ronald Frame

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

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 don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge. — Flannery O'Connor

I love mystery novels ... I love seeing the dramas played out in academic departments, particularly English departments. I started reading these when I was going up for tenure. — Natasha Trethewey

It's important to write a mystery novel where the takeaway is not a giveaway - where something could be read over and over. — Jimenez Lai

Creativity is a commodity and derives its value only in how energy is spent. — Mary Deal

Three guys and a girl were leaning against a black raised pickup ... I had to do a double take as this group was nothing like I had ever seen before. — Meredith T. Taylor

From now on, it is our task to suspect each and everyone amongst us. Forewarned is forearmed. Take no risks and be alert to danger. That is all. — Agatha Christie

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

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

You are the master of your emotions and you and only you have the power to control them external and internal. — Sharyan Alleyne

Well, typically the state of hypnosis is perfected at the right combination of light and sound frequency when the mind completely relaxes. At this state, the mind also becomes highly suggestible, which means the word of the hypnotist becomes the new reality of the subconscious mind. — Rajib Mukherjee

He's an odd duck
but he's a good kid, with a good heart. — Lisa Scottoline