Mystery Novels Quotes

“There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.”

“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.”

“I go through stages with all kinds of stuff. There'll be a couple of months where I'm reading, you know, like, fiction mystery novels, and there'll be a couple more where I'll be redecorating a room in my house.”

“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'!'”

“Jackson watched in amazement that she had convinced the driver to handle the vehicle in such a way. Tourists began taking pictures of Imogene, standing tall in the seat while the driver guided the horse with the reins. She kept her eye trained on Catfish, describing his every step as if the driver couldn’t see the runner for himself … Catfish stopped at the “T” in the road up ahead. He was heaving air, and Imogene said, “We’ve worn him out, son. Keep on him. He’s ours for the catchin’.”

“You alone in Europe are not ancient oh ChristianityThe most modern European is you Pope Pius XAnd you whom the windows observe shame keeps youFrom entering a church and confessing this morningYou read the prospectuses the catalogues the billboards that sing aloudThat's the poetry this morning and for the prose there are the newspapersThere are the 25 centime serials full of murder mysteriesPortraits of great men and a thousand different headlines("Zone")”

“He lost his appetite for reading. He was afraid of being overwhelmed again. In mystery novels people died like dolls being discarded; in science fiction enormities of space and time conspired to crush the humans ; and even in P.G. Wodehouse he felt a hollowness, a turning away from reality that was implicitly bitter, and became explicit in the comic figures of futile parsons.”

“A good friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move a body.”

“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.”

“There are always messages, even enigmas to be searched, mysteries to be solved in all of my books. I like to puzzle readers, but I do not make so to the point of being so complex that they will lose interest in the plot. And that for me is the essence of every great literature around the world, and that’s been so for ages.(....)Some were inpired by real life characters, some other books I wrote are hybrid fiction/non-fiction, so I pretty much get inspired by people who have lived, and even who are still breathing among us… so don’t get discouraged if I didn’t mention your personality traits yet. I might even have your name over my books, I must some day…”

“We're Killers On The Keyboard”

“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.”

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

“The love of money can do wicked things to one's soul.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The mystery form was very helpful for me as a beginning writer because mystery novels and suspense novels have a beginning, a middle and an end.”

“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.”

“Find my weak points, but more importantly, find yours.”