Short Mystery Quotes & Sayings

A Mystery in short is an invitation to the mind. For it means that there is an inexhaustible well of Truth from which the mind may drink and drink again in the certainty that the well will never run dry, that there will always be water for the mind's thirst. — Frank Sheed

There was a brown substance inside and Chase had no doubt: it was heroin. Only a tiny amount, but very pure. - Cutting Right to the Chase Vol.2 — Stefania Mattana

Mystery is an inescapable ingredient of mathematics. Mathematics is full of unanswered questions, which far outnumber known theorems and results. It's the nature of mathematics to pose more problems than it can solve. Indeed, mathematics itself may be built on small islands of truth comprising the pieces of mathematics that can be validated by relatively short proofs. All else is speculation. — Ivars Peterson

The telephone was not yet at that date as commonly in use as it is today. And yet habit requires so short a time to divest of their mystery the sacred forces with which we are in contact, that, not having had my call at once, my immediate thought was that it was all very long and very inconvenient, and I almost decided to lodge a complaint. — Marcel Proust

I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom."
"Excellent!" I cried.
"Elementary," said he. "It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbour, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Paoletta turned to him with a dark face.
You'd better watch out, Chase. He's passed over to the evil side. — Stefania Mattana

It was Chase who had obtained the information from the girl's boyfriend during a party in an Irish pub, simply by using his British friendliness and charm. — Stefania Mattana

Life is nothing short of a phenomenon. In every sense life is mysterious and unfathomable. — Bryant McGill

Without the heavy set aristocratic man snoring away on his side of the bed, without the fresh-eyed child whose hair ribbon needs retying; without the conversation at meals and the hearty appetites and getting dressed for church on time; without the tears of laughter or the worry about making both ends meet, the unpaid bills, the layoffs, both seasonal and unexpected; without the toys that have to picked up lest somebody trip over them, and the seven shirts that have to be washed and ironed, one for every day in the week; without the scraped knee and the hurt feelings, the misunderstandings that need to be cleared up, the voices calling for her so that she is perpetually having to stop what she is doing and go see what they want - without all this, what have you? A mystery: How is it that she didn't realize it was going to last such a short time? — William Maxwell

I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a pocket-handkerchief. — Edgar Allan Poe

We'd come to the same fork in the road I have seen scores of patients come to, the same place I'd seen Alice Hobson come to. We were up against the unfixable. But we were desperate to believe that we weren't up against the unmanageable. Yet short of calling 911 the next time trouble hit, and letting the logic and momentum of medical solutions take over, what were we to do? Between the three of us we had 120 years of experience in medicine, but it seemed a mystery. It turned out to be an education. — Atul Gawande

She held out a small voice recorder. 'By the way, could you describe exactly how you felt at the moment of impact? I'm writing this short story
'
'Put that away, Hazel,' hissed Mam. 'The poor boy is in pain.'
Hazel persisted. 'Would that be a white-hot pain? Or more of a dull throbbing pain? — Eoin Colfer

Have you ever been in jail, mate? Whatever you did in your life, nothing can be compared to a single day in jail. — Stefania Mattana

The sound of running footsteps made them all start. Then the refectory door opened and the round, freckled face of Sister Belinda appeared. She was breathing heavily, and her veil was crooked, showing short tufts of red hair sprouting around her glowing face like unruly weeds in a parched garden.
"Excuse me, Mother, Sisters," she said. "But there is a police car waiting at the gate and what looks like the Black Maria behind it. Also, another car approaching from the farm and a uniformed constable coming in via the beach path. It would appear that the filth have us surrounded. — Sharon Bolton

We are nearly always longing for an easy religion, easy to understand and easy to follow; a religion with no mystery, no insoluble problems,no snags; a religion that would allow us to escape from our miserable human condition; a religion in which contact with God spares us all strife, all uncertainty,all suffering and all doubt; in short, a religion without a cross — Paul Tournier

I'm either on the cusp of greatness or the edge of insanity. — Meb Bryant

But the thing that ... that I touched ... " I cried. "It was furry! It-" I stopped short, taken with a shudder. "I know," said Herrick. — Margery Williams

Isabel frowned. "Alma Trumbo, you did not just dig up a human bone from our flowerbed. It's got to be a dinosaur bone, dinky or not."
"A dinosaur bone, eh?" The short, stout Alma gave her tall, slim sister the old up and down. "What then, are we the Flintstones living in Bedrock? — Ed Lynskey

Sam stood on the second floor veranda of the hotel, across from the pool, and looked out spotting Claire. His heart took a tiny leap in his chest when he first caught sight of her in the crowd around the pool, he zeroed in on her face instantly, like a computer program scanning faces. Her almond-shaped brown eyes captivated him, even at the great distance. When she stood up from the lounger, he instinctively reached down for the railing to grab on to something. It was the first time he'd seen her in a bathing suit. Wow. She looked lovely. Her exposed cafe latte colored skin glowed. Purple was her color, and it showcased her small, but curvy body the one he'd held tightly just a few short hours ago. — Carolyn Gibbs

On the Writing Process:
When in doubt, take it out., — Barbara DaCosta

We lie to protect our children, and in lying we expose them to the greatest of harms — John Connolly

Mystery is good."
He drummed his fingertips on my thigh. "Maybe.Maybe not. But I'll let it go. How about this: If I were to open the top drawer of your dresser, what would I find?"
"Are we back to discussing my underwear again?"
"Only in graphic detail ... " He flicked my sore knee, but not where the bruise was. "I keep loose change and my oldest comic books in mine. Some people have journals or photographs or awards ... "
"Okay,okay." I sighed. "Underwear," I said. "Two ancient swimsuits, and a magazine file."
"Of ... ?"
"Pictures I've pulled out of magazines."
"Yes,thank you. I gathered that. What's in it?"
I squirmed a little and contemplated lying. Travel pix, shoes, hints on getting glue off of Ultrasuede ... "Mostly pictures of models with short hair," I confessed finally. "It's sort of a goal of mine."
Alex reached up and wrapped a strand around his finger. "I like your hair," he said quietly, "but I think you'd look great whatever you did with it. — Melissa Jensen

Mr Benz, the parapet of an Italian bridge doesn't look like the proper place for you, said Chase. — Stefania Mattana

I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them. — Dan Chaon

I started writing short stories. I tried writing horror, mystery, science fiction. I joined a little critique group here in town and ran my stories past them. After about three years, I tackled my first novel, Subterranean. It took me 11 months to write. — James Rollins

I imagine that she flushes, seeing him there, for she is at that age when even the most commonplace boys take on a sense of mystery. And this boy is not ordinary. He is wild and he has strange and fanciful perceptions. [p. 153] — Kim Edwards

Norm was lean, his short, straight black hair parted on the side, his mustache trimmed like he'd never heard of Adolf Hitler. — Jane Sunday

I believe that the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms on the grasslands of Africa gave us the model for all religions to follow. And when, after long centuries of slow forgetting, migration, and climatic change, the knowledge of the mystery was finally lost, we in our anguish traded partnership for dominance, traded harmony with nature for rape of nature, traded poetry for the sophistry of science. In short, we traded our birthright as partners in the drama of the living mind of the planet for the broken pot shards of history, warfare, neurosis, and-if we do not quickly awaken to our predicament-planetary catastrophe. — Terence McKenna

That night we made love "the real way" which we had not yet attempted
although married six months.
Big mystery. No one knew where to put their leg and to this day I'm not sure
we got it right.
He seemed happy. You're like Venice he said beautifully.
Early next day
I wrote a short talk ("On Defloration") which he stole and had published
in a small quarterly magazine.
Overall this was a characteristic interaction between us.
Or should I say ideal.
Neither of us had ever seen Venice. — Anne Carson

The passage from Genesis points to a mystery greater still. It says that we came from farther away than space and longer ago than time. It says that evolution and genetics and environment explain a lot about us but they don't explain all about us or even the most important thing about us. It says that though we live in the world, we can never really be at home in the world. It says in short not only that we were created by God but also that we were created in God's image and likeness. We have something of God within us the way we have something of the stars. — Frederick Buechner

Lending my voice to a dedicated readership is a match made in heaven. — R. Barri Flowers

The wheel turns for all, caro Chase. It's the karma effect, Giulia cried, aping Ilenia. She could have never imagined that her words would become prophetic so soon. — Stefania Mattana

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre.Poe died at the age of 40. The cause of his death is undetermined and has been attributed to alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide (although likely to be mistaken with his suicide attempt in the previous year), tuberculosis, heart disease, brain congestion and other agents. Source: Wikipedia — Edgar Allan Poe

Procrustes, in Greek mythology, was the cruel owner of a small estate in Corydalus in Attica, on the way between Athens and Eleusis, where the mystery rites were performed. Procrustes had a peculiar sense of hospitality: he abducted travelers, provided them with a generous dinner, then invited them to spend the night in a rather special bed. He wanted the bed to fit the traveler to perfection. Those who were too tall had their legs chopped off with a sharp hatchet; those who were too short were stretched (his name was said to be Damastes, or Polyphemon, but he was nicknamed Procrustes, which meant "the stretcher"). — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, the prisoner stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path on the way to the gallows. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. — George Orwell

Her religious poetry was surprisingly slender, and as I was eager to know more about her religion, I asked her about this aspect of her poetry. She replied with these lines from Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'
that is all Ye know on eath, and all ye need to know'. Do not ask me to immortalise the great Mystery of Life. I am just a humble worker. For beauty, look to the Pslams, to Isaiah, to St. John of the Cross. How could my poor pen scan such verse? For truth, look to the Gospels
four short accounts of God made Man. There is nothing more to say. — Jennifer Worth

The first thing we see about a short story is its mystery. And in the best short stories, we return at the last to see mystery again — Eudora Welty

Such as make the sacrament only a representation of Christ do aim short of the mystery, and come short of the comfort. — Thomas Watson

The moment that followed was one that would forever change the course of her life. She reflected on it later, and wondered how such a short matter of seconds could alter so permanently every part of her existence. Like an unstoppable line of dominoes, the moment was the flick that set everything into motion. — Jennifer Perry

What makes a poem a poem, finally, is that it is unparaphrasable. There is no other way to say exactly this; it exists only in its own body of language, only in these words. I may try to explain it or represent it in other terms, but then some element of its life will always be missing.
It's the same with painting. All I can say of still life must finally fall short; I may inventory, weigh, suggest, but I cannot circumscribe; some element of mystery will always be left out. What is missing is, precisely, its poetry. — Mark Doty

Thus even though Christians are already saved, they still await the fullness of their salvation. Paul sees our salvation as both present and future, as both a now and a not-yet experience. In short, whatever blessings we have here and now will multiply when the fullness of time finally arrives and God brings the plan (mystery, verses 9, 10) that He developed "before the foundation of the world" (verse 4) to its climax. The problems that we face as Christians here on earth will not always be. No wonder Paul refers to the Second Advent as the "blessed hope" (Titus 2:13). — George R. Knight

In the garden the door is always open into the "holy" - growth, birth, death. Every flower holds the whole mystery in its short cycle, and in the garden we are never far away from death, the fertilizing, good, creative death. — May Sarton

Excerpted From Chapter One
I decided staying put in the alley was preferable to keeping the dead guy company, so I went outside and lit a Lucky Strike. The night air had gotten damper and chillier during the short time I was in the warehouse, or maybe it was just me.
Wisps of lacy fog were now sinking into the alley, and a skulking cat in search of dinner moved slowly along the opposite wall until he noticed me. He scurried off in a furry blur, eager to be far away from the evil invading his domain. The cat had better sense than me and I wished I could follow his example. — H.P. Oliver

When I write short fiction or novellas, I like to leave a hint of the fantastic, of the unreal. If you write a completely fantastic novel with ghosts and everything, the effect is less powerful than if you portray an absolutely realistic situation and, in the middle of this, you put a layer of fantasy, of mystery. — Antonio Munoz Molina

In the long term everyone traffics in foregone conclusions, and in the short term they just get drunk. This is the way it has always been. Some half-assed ambiguity masquerading as mystery is all anybody's really looking for. — Paul Neilan

O sleep! ridiculous mystery which makes faces appear so grotesque, you are the revealer of human ugliness. You uncover all shortcomings, all deformities and all defects. You turn every face touched by you into a caricature. — Guy De Maupassant

So, Mystery Lady? What's it going to be? You're going to spend your short little life playing by their rules, or are you going to take your chance? — Lili St. Crow

In the course of this story, and very soon now, it will be necessary to make some disclosures about Mr. Krupper of a nature too coarse to be dealt with very directly in a work of such brevity. The grossly naturalistic details of a life, contained in the enormously wide context of that life, are softened and qualified by it, but when you attempt to set those details down in a tale, some measure of obscurity or indirection is called for to provide the same, or even approximate, softening effect that existence in time gives to those gross elements in the life itself. When I say that there was a certain mystery in the life of Mr. Krupper, I am beginning to approach those things in the only way possible without a head-on violence that would disgust and destroy and which would actually falsify the story.
("Hard Candy") — Tennessee Williams

Sheriff Fox was running his fingers through his thin hair. In a few short years, he'd look bald as a peeled apple. The Snoop sisters and their sidekick, the town's bag lady no less, had traipsed into his office without knocking first. His admin (he couldn't remember their names to save his life) had ushered them in, and they'd just dumped this hot potato into his lap. — Ed Lynskey

In the isolation of his clear, cold intellect, the sceptic abides in a glacial and spectral universe. No glow from the affections lights up the frost and shadow of the grave. He feels no prophecy in the thrill of the human heart-in the incompleteness of nature. He believes merely in things tangible, and sees only in the daytime. He will not confess the authenticity of that paler light of faith which was meant to shine when the sunshine of reason falls short, and the firmament of mystery is over our heads. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Holding her gaze, he sheathed his short sword and pulled the gauntlet off his left hand with his teeth. He held out his bare hand to her.
She glanced at the proffered hand before laying her palm in his. Hot strength gripped her tightly as he pulled her upright before him, so close she would've had to move only inches to brush her lips across his throat. She watched the pulse of his blood beat there, strong and sure, before she lifted her gaze. His head was cocked almost as if he were examining her - searching for something in her face.
She drew in a breath, parting her lips to ask a question. — Elizabeth Hoyt

One of the earliest and most vivid memories of Robin's childhood was of the day that the family dog had been put down. She herself had been too young to understand what her father was saying; she took the continuing existence of Bruno, her oldest brother's beloved Labrador, for granted. Confused by her parents' solemnity, she had turned to Stephen for a clue as to how to react, and all security had crumbled, for she had seen, for the first time in her short life, happiness and comfort drain out of his small and merry face, and his lips whiten as his mouth fell open. She had heard oblivion howling in the silence that preceded his awful scream of anguish, and then she had cried, inconsolably, not for Bruno, but for the terrifying grief of her brother. — Robert Galbraith

It is the illusion of magic and the magic of illusion that we are primarily interested in- not the privy tricks or the key to the secrets themselves. We seek the bafflement, the contradictions, the amusements, and the innumerable emotions that ripple uneasily through the audience. It is not knowledge we are after, but mystery and disguises. We want to gaze at the impossible. We are hungry for surprises, astonishment. In short, we are looking for a true story, but one impossible to explain in all its complexity. When we discover that story, we shall have found- magic. — Edward Claflin

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working - bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming - toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned - reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world less. — George Orwell

Any mystery writer is both magician and moralist ... two species of artist in short supply. — Sue Grafton

Life's too short for cheap beer--or cheap men. — Daryl Anderson

In fact, she realized when they finally found their table and sat down, every single woman at the banquet was dressed in some variation of back. Black silk, black chiffon, black with beads, black with rhinestones, short black cocktail dresses, black evening dresses, and even black pantsuits. All black. There was no way she was going to get lost in this crowd, not in her pink-and-orange poppy print — Leslie Meier

Some day I would like to write a textbook on how to be a female detective in a man's world. Rule Number One: try not to let your animosity show. Your career as an investigator will be short lived if you cannot hide your feelings when you dislike, distrust, or despise your interviewee. — Frances Brody

A religious belief ... is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Others are engaged in sucking it. Others yet use the finger to gouge their eyes out. These are the bigots whom religion has made blind. Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating - these are those who, having gone beyond belief, are taken for blasphemers. — Anthony De Mello

I'm not a risk taker. I don't do plunging necklines or really short skirts. I try to stay as classy as possible and provide a little mystery. — Kristen Bell