Top 100 Crime Thriller Quotes
#1. I read 'Red Dragon' back in high school. I love Thomas Harris' approach to the crime thriller that crossed over into horror in a way that nobody really tapped into.
Bryan Fuller
#2. What was always interesting about Thomas Harris' books is they were a wonderful hybridization of a crime thriller and a horror movie.
Bryan Fuller
#3. If you wait for God to descend to earth and save you
from your fuck ups, you will be waiting until you
drop dead.
Sheeja Jose
#5. Bravery isn't when you go looking for trouble; bravery is when trouble comes looking for you.
P.I. Barrington
#6. He threw himself to his knees at the stone and tore his damning testimony from the pages of its testament. He held the only evidence of his identity in his hand and in one motion of forfeit and justice he cast it into the fire.
Wyatt Michael
#7. There were three of them in the room now, where only two had first come in. Death was in the room with the two of them.
Cornell Woolrich
#8. This was different, spontaneous, unrestricted. This was what dancing was supposed to feel like - like freedom.
Anam Iqbal
#9. Everywhere on our planet one hand greases another. Often it's done with a bloated face, wearing a serpent's smile.
M.Sullivan
Mike Sullivan
#10. Redemption is for the weak. The strong keep sinning
Marvin Amazon
#11. History buffs expect historical background in historical fiction. Mystery readers expect forensics and police procedure in crime fiction. Westerns - gasp - describe the West. Techno-thriller readers expect to learn something about technology from their fiction.
Edward M. Lerner
#12. They stole you from me. They took you away for seven years. Your entire lifetime. A life sentence. The waiting has been endless. The watching. The planning. Now, finally, I'm almost ready. I've got a few things to take care of and then we can be reunited.
Sanjida Kay
#13. Sometimes death is even better than to confess a secret.
Alper Kaya
#14. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.
---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Donna Cummins
#15. I've just done a film in the United States. It's a thriller called 'A Crime', with Harvey Keitel, we play against each other, and it's so great to play in another language. But I'm definitely not American.
Emmanuelle Beart
#17. If we found a ticket to Disneyland would you think we should arrest Mickey Mouse?
Diane L. Randle
#18. We thought we were invincible and Dominic proved us all wrong, - Jesse Carlisle
Nina D'Angelo
#19. He'd have denied it to his dying breath but Derwent wasn't as tough as he pretended to be. For the very small number of people he cared about, Derwent would give his all. It made him vulnerable, and every now and then that vulnerability showed.
Jane Casey
#20. He was a Super Politician, defender of untruths, injustice and the American power-play.
B.V. Lawson
#21. Abigail ... His heart ached for his little girl, and the loss of his family drove like a blade through his heart. His head jerked up as the creak of a timber echoed overhead. If only they hadn't come to this god-forsaken place.
Caroline Mitchell
#22. If you do not write something original you have written nothing at all.
Steve Levi
#23. It's as if he's trodden in my footsteps, seen what I've seen, felt what I've felt, as I've criss-crossed the moors countless times.
Sanjida Kay
#24. Speculation is a dangerous thing without any evidence to back it up.
Jane Casey
#25. Had a big trial. It was like an Errol Flynn movie.
Jeannie Walker
#26. One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture; A pale blue eye with a film over it.
Keith Steinbaum
#27. So that was where we were in our relationship.Derwent's scale ran all the way from wouldn't piss-on-you-if-you-were-on-fire to would-kill-for-you-no-need-to-ask-twice. I was quite glad to be somewhere near the middle.
Jane Casey
#29. Lies are so suburban...But murder is nice and clean.
Carole Morin
#30. That's the thing about digging holes," Quinn said. "There are no assurances you'll find what you want - or want what you find.
Tami Hoag
#31. She knelt down, her breath stinking of cigarettes and alcohol. It was his mother's signature aroma.
Caroline Mitchell
#32. Where I'm taking you, no one will ever find us. We'll have all the time in the world for you to grow to love me as much as I love you.
Sanjida Kay
#33. A pawn only needs to move five spaces to become the queen" - from Bhendi Bazaar
Vish Dhamija
#34. I have to hurt other people in order to get what I want, I don't have a choice but to. In life, you gotta do the right things for the wrong reasons. Or the wrong things for the right reasons.
Khali Raymond
#35. She had a face that had had lived a thousand stories and none with a happy ending.
Jim McGrath
#36. Rescuing Elena plunged him into the nightmare world of people trafficking and sex slavery.... but as an ex-Royal Marine, he could handle it
David Zelder
#38. Listen, we got two stiffs and a river of red in a villa in Herne Bay ...
Rhys Chamberlain
#39. Their attention was focused on the strange kid who wore black eyeliner and dressed as if every day was a funeral.
Caroline Mitchell
#40. I go where I want to go, I do what I want to do, and I am beholden to no one.
Mark M. DeRobertis
#41. Fuck you! Someone has tortured and killed one of your girls and you couldn't give a damn? I thought you were supposed to protect them, to be their guardian. Isn't that what pimps do?' Garcia's face flared red.
Chris Carter
#42. Hunter let go of JJ who started dusting his jacket with both hands. 'Look at what you've done to my suit man, these things don't come cheap you know.'
Garcia checked his pocket change. 'Here.' He extended his hand towards JJ. 'A dollar ninety-five. Go buy another one.
Chris Carter
#43. The professor's motive was in the grand scheme of things terribly petty " Greenwood said. ""Pilate's Cross" is inspired by the questions this terrible crime created but as a work of fiction it is set in a different place and time and has a more complex motive for the murders.
J. Alexander Greenwood
#44. A single lie is the father of all lies
Sheeja Jose
#45. Because of course, for every revelation of weakness, there had to be an equal and opposite show of strength.
Jane Casey
#47. I started to drink heavily, comfortably caught in the tentacle-like clutches of alcohol.
Keith Steinbaum
#48. 'In Cold Blood' is not a thriller at all, really. It is, however, the first work of its kind: a true crime book that reads like fiction.
Lisa Unger
#49. Soon he would be able to touch her, to feel the warmth of her blood. When the time came, nothing would stop him.
Caroline Mitchell
#50. We all have something special in us, it's a matter of finding it, and knowing what to do with it.
Robert Magarian
#51. Jennifer can no longer ignore the personal connection. Is there a copycat killer at work? Was the wrong man convicted? Or is there something more sinister at play ...
Caroline Mitchell
#52. No one mentioned the sad piece of tinsel, naked in places, hanging across the chimneybreast, nor that Twelfth Night was a week ago. No one mentioned the two Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. No one mentioned them because inside they were blank.
Andrew Barrett
#53. There are criminals everywhere these days, you know. One might end up missing the police! Who would have thought that possible?
The Maid
The Informer by Steen Langtrup
Steen Langstrup
#54. You know you're writing a good thriller when you make yourself paranoid.
Shirley B. Garrett
#55. Every time I think I'm about to seize the moment, it drifts back into the shadows, just beyond my reach.
Paula Hawkins
#57. On deathbed every single good, bad, ugly moment becomes special.
Sheeja Jose
#58. For me, writing isn't about money and fame. It's about passion, an art form that I want to share with the world, expand the horizons to new worlds, new experiences, and new adventures.
Jason W. Blair
#59. Steve had just met the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Until now his engagement to Christine had never been a concern.
Stephen Douglass
#60. I felt a little bad about killing the man, but what choice did I have?" ... Louie Morelli, "The Prince of Mafia Princes.
Patricia Bellomo
#61. Do it once and do it right and do it quickly
Lee Child
#62. Blood doesn't speak of its owner.
Mita Jain
#63. It was one of those late summer days trying its best to convince everyone that winter would never seep through and ravage the earth.
A.J. Waines
#64. Nothing is 'wrong' with me, Dan. What's wrong with you? she said in the same eerily quiet voice, dark eyes fixated on Dan, as she breathed heavily.
Martin Hopkins
#65. If everything comes in your way just the way you wanted them to ,then you're probably in the wrong lane.
ARKOPAUL
#66. But now we live in a time and in a culture when mystery tends to mean something more answerable, it means a crime novel, a thriller, a drama on TV, usually one where we'll find out - and where the whole point of reading it or watching it will be that we will find out - what happened.
Ali Smith
#67. Finally, the water level topped off, leaving him with no more air to breathe. He drew his last breath and slipped down deep into the darkness that claimed his soul.
Wyatt Michael
#68. A miracle that happens twice cannot be
called a miracle
Sheeja Jose
#69. A shocking ultimatum is issued; choose the victim or it defaults to someone you hold dear. And she has just minutes to decide. As each crime becomes more brutal, she is forced to play devil's advocate as she chooses the next target.
WITNESS
Caroline Mitchell
#70. I don't mind my friends calling me "Thornes," but the fact of people calling me "Prickly Thornes" draws the line.
Simi Sunny
#71. You Englishmen,' said Herr Wurter. 'You are all the same. Wherever you are you behave as if you were at home and your word was law.
Derek Raymond
#72. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid I'll never get a chance to live!
A.A. Bell
#73. Life, like that water droplet, is everlasting and imperishable. There is only a transition, never an end !
Rajib Mukherjee
#74. It was then
and only then that I realised I had really come home.
J.M Shorney
#75. The one ring, to rule them all'? Sounds very far-fetched to me!
Graham Downs
#76. Like a submarine ejecting ballast, he bobbed to the surface as another sense pulled his eyelids all the way open like roller blinds in the old cartoons.
Andrew Barrett
#77. The reflex of fear was soon replaced with another, more useful emotion.
Rage.
Tara Moss
#78. Only a few can survive and face reality without a vice.
Jacob Wild
#79. At that exact moment, 6-0-0, the sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its reflection flared across the river toward our house, a long, blaring finger aimed at me through our frail bedroom curtains. Accusing: You have been seen. You will be seen.
Gillian Flynn
#80. Some of the most likeable people on the outside are capable of truly heinous things.
Kenneth Eade
#81. The last I knew you were going to a party. just a few friends at the McEvoys' you told me. The science club, you told me. What happened? You got into a fight about the theory of relativity? Did creationists crash the party and start a rumble?
Tami Hoag
#82. A hundred times I must have thought of ways to take it back, but I wasn't smart enough to understand that an apology is a sign of strenght, not weakness ( ... )
Terry Hayes
#83. It's getting a little chilly in here! Why don't we sit by the fireplace and I'll tell you the story of how I single handedly killed the Medina boys!
Angel Ramon Medina
#84. In near panic, I craned my neck to gaze over the cabin's roofline a bursting fireball.
Ed Lynskey
#85. I liked the idea of a person shedding their life, and someone else putting it on.
-Oliver Harris on writing The Hollow Man for Crime Time online magazine
Oliver Harris
#86. What I saw there was my own death.
Otsuichi
#87. Some things in life could not be solved or even contemplated by a rational mind. Roger's mind, however, had ceased being anywhere near rational about half a bottle of Grand Marnier ago.
Andrew Barrett
#88. I needed to know, Jesse. I needed to get inside his head. To find this son of a bitch, I need to get inside his head. - Stephanie Carovella
Nina D'Angelo
#89. I am not their f*****g entertainment. And I am not a f*****g hero! Given the choice, a hero would do exactly the same again. I wouldn't. Okay?
Andrew Barrett
#90. I felt it burn all the way down my throat and into my stomach. I felt like I was dying.
Jeannie Walker
#91. Doing crime films ... maybe it's to some extent a matter of taste. Certainly my first novel had a criminal element and was about the similarity of criminals and artists. Pretextually, it was sort of a money bag thriller. But it was aggressively not what it seemed to be. It was kind of Duchamps.
William Monahan
#93. Hello my darling,
I'm your real father. I've been searching for you ever since you were stolen from me. I love you so much.
Daddy
Sanjida Kay
#94. Sometimes the hardest thing is admitting you were wrong. It's hard to say you need to be forgiven.
Jane Casey
#95. In crime fiction, I just don't write the parts that aren't a thriller and it's exactly the same in my TV reporting - I distill the essence of the story until it's only the jewels of the tale - and leave in only the most compelling and exciting parts.
Hank Phillippi Ryan
#96. We've got DNA tests; we can convict someone by his saliva. Hell, if the killer had farted in that house the forensic team would probably have some gadget that could pick it up. How can the crime scenes be so clean?
Chris Carter
#97. Just the night before, a puma's howl had set a chill at my spine and, man, life didn't get any richer than that.
Ed Lynskey
#98. Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to carry on that counts.
Winston Churchill
H.A. Corby
#99. Either I've got a wart on my nose they find curious, or I've grown a tail, Albie Merani muttered to himself. Just then he thought. I'd better get a move on, got work to do. He hurried across to some stairs, heading down deeper into station, then followed the signs to the pod station.
R.W. Rivers
#100. For those who resist the notion that the mainstream is a genre, we recommend that they browse the shelves of their local bookstore. For if the mainstream is not a genre, then it must necessarily embrace all kinds of writing: romance, adventure, horror, thriller, crime, and, yes, science fiction.
James Patrick Kelly
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
