Sleuth Quotes & Sayings

The bell seemed to have set off an
alarm in my brain, and I glimpsed at the mysterious envelope on my desk.

There was another item I should've gotten from my single-shoe salesman. — A.E.H. Veenman

The distinction between pretending you are better than you are and beginning to be better in reality is finer than moral sleuth hounds conceive. — C.S. Lewis

The list of lifesavers left him numb, clueless - the action, indifferent. — Noorilhuda

I rested my head on the wall behind me and closed my eyes, wishing my life had a button: Ignore All. — Rachel Brady

What I've always taken away from his words is the sense that we all have something that confines us, that seeks to define us, label us, belittling us in the process, shortchanging our potential. Can it be that that is our sanctuary, our refuge, our way to liberty? — Noorilhuda

No one is so modest as not to believe himself a competent amateur sleuth ... — Isaac Asimov

I simply said he was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, — P.G. Wodehouse

Across the rectory's east lawn, through a blizzard of flying leaves, something long and thin was flapping in the wind. A ragged figure in a white nightgown hanging lifelessly from the trees. — Cash Peters

My motto? Don't trust someone who is just as cagey as yourself."
"What kind of detective are you?" "A lousy one and proud of it. I write, remember?"
She looked down at her hand & laughed. "Berretta doesn't make lighters." "Why I was a writer! My life revolved around fiction. I could make something up"
"She looked down at her hand & laughed. "Berretta doesn't make lighters."
"So they're not Tolstoy, they're a little shorter ... Okay, okay a lot. Go ahead, read my mystery series anyway."
"A detective has their boundaries especially me. So mine shifted occasionally ... okay a lot"
"Beat it, Buster. My temper and this mace have a hair trigger."
"Interference could be lethal." I got right up in his face, hissing, "Don't push me, I'm hormonal."
I'm not really a lousy detective, just rough around the edges. — Peggy A. Edelheit

Remember what I told you about family secrets." People will kill to keep them, she thought now as she looked at Marianne McGraw. The woman's rocking didn't change as Nikki stepped deeper into the room. — B. J. Daniels

has their faults, right? I wasn't perfect either. But when I was with — Paige Sleuth

I began to appreciate that the job of an amateur sleuth was not quite so straightforward as they make out in the whodunits. — Bruce Beckham

He wrote to his father every day. His platoon called his dad a girlfriend. — Noorilhuda

I sleuth, you know. For a hobby. Harmless outlet for natural inquisitiveness, don't you see, which might otherwise strike inward and produce introspection an' suicide. Very natural, healthy pursuit
not too strenuous, not too sedentary; trains and invigorates the mind. — Dorothy L. Sayers

So you're like a ... an amateur sleuth?"
"God no. I'm more like the hapless guys in those film-noir flicks we used to watch. I keep getting tangled up in bizarro events."
"Oh yes?" His eyes lit with enthusiasm. I was speaking his language now. "Guy Pearce in L.A. Confidential or William Hurt in Body Heat?"
"I was thinking more like Woody Allen in Play It Again, Sam. — Josh Lanyon

Every sleuth ought to have a tame half-wit, to make him feel clever. — Anonymous

But that's the thing about dead people: they can't warn you to keep your nose out of things that are going to put your ass in danger. — LynDee Walker

Words are catch-basins of experience, fingerprints and footprints of the past that the literary detective may scrutinize in order to sleuth out the history of human consciousness. — Philip Zaleski

You're a nosy sleuth like me because you can't help it, Alma said. — Ed Lynskey

Abigail Adams could become my favorite historical sleuth. — Sharon Kay Penman

I decided, long ago, back-room negotiations with a nine iron and a pen, witness tampering, and suppression of evidence weren't for me. That's
what was expected of an independent lawyer hired by Louis Fernoza.

I wanted the corner office overlooking a
cityscape, the fine car and house, and the ability to sleep at night with a clear conscience. I'd say I achieved it all but not without a price. — A.E.H. Veenman

Sure there are times when one cries with acidity,
'Where are the limits of human stupidity?'
Here is a critic who says as a platitude
That I am guilty because 'in gratitude
Sherlock, the sleuth-hound, with motives ulterior,
Sneers at Poe's Dupin as "very inferior".'
Have you not learned, my esteemed communicator,
That the created is not the creator?
As the creator I've praised to satiety
Poe's Monsieur Dupin, his skill and variety,
And have admitted that in my detective work
I owe to my model a deal of selective work.
But is it not on the verge of inanity
To put down to me my creation's crude vanity?
He, the created, would scoff and would sneer,
Where I, the creator, would bow and revere.
So please grip this fact with your cerebral tentacle:
The doll and its maker are never identical. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Danger is the snack food of a true sleuth. — Mac Barnett

If you can get to be you, why can't I get to be me? — Noorilhuda

I ask you, what would you do if you could erase one bad memory and retain all that was beautiful in your life? Would you not move heaven and earth - and get loads of therapy - to have that? — Noorilhuda

It's as if they've planned out my life for me and I'm expected to live it for them. I hate it. So I don't tell anyone much. It's easier that way." ~Dani O'Meara from the forthcoming amateur sleuth mystery, Dangerous Days for Dani — Claire A. Murray

I considered my home sanctuary from the judicial arena, far from the Fernoza Family legacy, and I had no intention of sharing it with anyone. — A.E.H. Veenman

I leveled the gun and fired until it was empty. — Rachel Brady

Moriston House is really quite beautiful. No wonder everyone wants to be murdered here.
--Roberta "Bobbie" Aldridge — Jennifer A. Girardin

Your intent to find a mate sends out 'strands of consciousness'
however, composed of desire and intent. Like detectives, these
search the world, looking in a completely different way than
a physical sleuth. The world is probed with your characteristics
in mind, seeking for someone else with characteristics that will
best suit your own. — Seth

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look? — Nancy Lynn Jarvis

I was still a novice at the caped crusader super-sleuth thing, but it didn't take a degree from the Sherlock Holmes Detective School to see exactly what had happened here. Alison had come home, put her lunch in the zapper, poured herself a beverage, turned on her computer and ...
vanished off the face of the earth. — Suzanne Brockmann

That could be a very sexy story. — LynDee Walker

She had to save herself from every last one of them. All of them, the people at the orphanage, the foster care system, the middle school, they were all outsiders and strangers and a possible threat.....The counselor couldn't prove otherwise. — Noorilhuda

She was a sleuth and sleuths had to follow rules. 'Get to the point; don't allow the subject to digress' was one of them — Renita D'Silva

A young, beautiful mayor's with high-powered plans for the city of Compton must put them aside to become a sleuth to solve the assassination of her husband, the mayor. — Martha Tucker

One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott's heroes still may strut, Dickens's delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray's worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated. — Arthur Conan Doyle

He also knew the language of The Klingons, but the army had no use for it. — Noorilhuda

MG was nearly mythical, other than my entries - no interaction with users on
the off chance one was a Fernoza on the troll. And today proved I couldn't take a stranger bearing gifts at face-value. — A.E.H. Veenman

It go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require — P.G. Wodehouse

When you're writing a whodunit, the dead body is the most important character. It's the pivot point around which the plot spins. — Adrianne Lee

The Metropolitan Police has a very straightforward approach to murder investigations, not for them the detective's gut instinct or the intricate logical deductions of the sleuth savant. No, what the Met likes to do is throw a shitload of manpower at the problem and run down every single lead until it is exhausted, the murderer is caught or the senior investigating officer dies of old age. — Ben Aaronovitch

Aurora, you're a child, live like one, don't act like one. Enjoy the innocence, dump the immaturity. — Noorilhuda

The poet, the artist, the sleuth - whoever sharpens our perception tends to be antisocial; rarely "well-adjusted", he cannot go along with currents and trends. A strange bond often exists between antisocial types in their power to see environments as they really are. This need to interface, to confront environments with a certain antisocial power is manifest in the famous story "The Emperor's New Clothes". — Marshall McLuhan

How do you circumvent a mind bent upon lying to get away from the truth? — Noorilhuda

Even in death, her mother was winning. — Noorilhuda

In a mystery, the sleuth must be believably involved and emotionally invested in solving the crime. — Diane Mott Davidson

The good characters in my book are loosely based on folks I know. All the bad stuff is made up. — Mike Bove

'The Big Sleep' is an unsentimental, surrealist excitement in which most of the men in Hollywood's underworld are murdered and most of the women go for an honest but not unwilling private sleuth (Humphrey Bogart). — Manny Farber

Death by misadventure sounds like a hopeful possibility.
--Marjorie Branell-Markson — Jennifer A. Girardin

Please don't complicate the investigation by offering an explanation that might actually be true.
--Marjorie Branell-Markson — Jennifer A. Girardin