Top 100 Quotes About Mystery Fiction
#1. Yes - 90% of fantasy is crap. And so is 90% of science fiction and 90% of mystery fiction and 90% of literary fiction.
George R R Martin
#2. Women in mystery fiction were largely confined to little old lady snoops - amateur sleuths - who are nurses, teachers, whatever.
Marcia Muller
#3. The most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.
Lee Child
#4. Nothing is whole, not for too damned long. The world is half night.
Peter Straub
#6. Flowers are fragile and ephemeral ... Even if you meant to protect them with a surrounding fence from wind and rain, they would die without sunlight ... and a spindly fence has no power against a strong wind. - Haibara Ai
Gosho Aoyama
#7. She pulls her hand away and Damian feels the sensation of falling, a somersault into a foreign abyss where a girl with eggplant hair and a hoop in her brow waits in the darkness.
Christy A. Campbell
#8. She and I are as far apart as the stars in the sky and the soles of my feet." Detective Sean Ryan ~Deception on Sable Hill by Shelley Gray
Shelley Gray
#9. Marshall Jevons is the pioneer for integrating economics and detective fiction, and The Mystery of the Invisible Hand is another fine effort in this genre.
Tyler Cowen
#10. Never settle for normal, Miss Lyons," Shinzo told her. "Normal is not natural. Extraordinary is natural, and that's why you're here. To do something extraordinary.
Kaylin McFarren
#11. Life, like that water droplet, is everlasting and imperishable. There is only a transition, never an end !
Rajib Mukherjee
#13. I am a storyteller, spiraling fantasy and reality into mystical tales. That eerie space between fact and fiction, where only the brightest light can scare the shadows - you will find me there.
Sara Frost
#14. Romantic fiction, in the broader sense, can be any novel that has a love story somewhere in it. It can be a mystery or a historical novel, as long as it has this very strong romantic thread running through it.
Susanna Kearsley
#15. Facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter,' as my friend the late Maya Deren once phrased the mystery.
Joseph Campbell
#16. I was its skin, its movement, its shape, its god, its creator, its destroyer. And you thought Dexter was bad. The Bridgeman arrives soon.
Catherine Astolfo
#17. When I'm reading for my own pleasure, I read things other than history or archival material. I read a lot of fiction. I'm very fond of mysteries.
David McCullough
#18. Of the true mysteries of the universe . . . the one we may never solve is the mystery of other people. This is the underlying subject of all fiction--Who ARE you, and why are you different from me?--from a NYT Book Review review of Since We Fell, by Dennis Lehane
Noah Hawley
#20. When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.
Charles Baxter
#21. Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.
Robert Jordan
#22. David could tell, by looking at her face as she read, whether or not the story contained in the book was living inside her, and she in it, and he would recall again all that she had told him about stories and tales and the power that they wield over us, and that we in turn wield over them.
John Connolly
#23. Nice dress," Victoria said.
"Thank you," Perpetua said. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
Victoria blinked. "Uh, what?
Benjamin R. Smith
#24. They've also asked me now to start on another series that we're gonna do after this Frontier Earth. But it's not science fiction, it's more in the Mystery and Crime division and that's another area I'm very interested in.
Bruce Boxleitner
#25. This is the right time
They are the right people
Will it be enough for mankind?
From "The Rishis: Book of Secrets.
Robert Delgado
#26. Blood doesn't speak of its owner.
Mita Jain
#27. Cattle ... it called us cattle ...
We're hamburger, you mean.
Peter Clines
#28. I write fiction. It may have mystery, it may have horror, it may have fantasy, it may have love, but like life, it's all the same genre.
Don Roff
#29. They had just digested a recent meal of prepositions and were happily farting out apostrophes and ampersands; the air was heav'y with th'em&.
Jasper Fforde
#30. My mama always said, You can always ask. The worst they can do is say no. But I don't think Mama was thinking about revenge and murder when she dealt out that piece of homespun advice
Catrina Burgess
#31. What was justice, after all, but a particular outcome?
Suzanne Rindell
#32. And when whatever happened in that barn happened, it was a moment I'll never forget. Like a missing key slid into a dusty old lock. Click. My world opened.
Jennifer Walkup
#33. Let the spirits guide you, but never let them take you.
E.J. Stevens
#34. If everything comes in your way just the way you wanted them to ,then you're probably in the wrong lane.
ARKOPAUL
#35. William made an ejaculation in his own language that I didn't understand, nor did the abbot understand it, and perhaps it was best for us both, because the word William uttered had an obscene hissing sound.
Umberto Eco
#36. Man determines to dictate your turn, but God determines your time. It was Saul's turn, but it was David's time. Don't wait for your turn, wait for your time.
Lee M. Sapp
#37. 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
#38. Believe in yourself, Follow your dreams, and all things are possible!
Garry E. Lewis
#40. There are times when you have to commit a crime to prevent an even bigger one. At least, that's what I tell myself when I can't sleep at night.
Judy Penz Sheluk
#41. Sometimes you gotta say what's in your heart... And you have to stand for what you believe. No matter what."
~'Dr. Michael C. Anders,
Stephanie Osborn
#43. God knows, I'm no expert on relationships, but I do know when something's good. And this thing we've created between us is precious and rare. I only hope it's not fleeting, because for the first time in my adult life, I've given someone the power to hurt me.
Linda Castillo
#44. The great mystery is why robots come off so well in science-fiction films when the human characters are often so astoundingly wooden.
John Podhoretz
#45. 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
#46. I found out after reading quite a lot of it that it is not rated very high. He has a very descriptive way of writing but also lengthy. May not want to finish!!!!! This was his 1sr and only try ast Historical Fiction!
Wilkie Collins
#47. Its aura distorts hard edges. Shimmering vortices of discoloration boil off, swirling, licking the
cold night air with bright spectral fire. Violence and death, this one's still hot.
Michael Allan Scott
#48. If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that she knew what it was like to be filled.
Jodi Picoult
#49. It was as if his fingers knew things, but they couldn't show him unless they were moving, touching. He had to think it was similar for carpenters and writers, and he knew it was the same for chefs.
Laura Lippman
#50. Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.
Diana Gabaldon
#51. Just because someone is on your path, it doesn't mean that they're on your journey.
Lee M. Sapp
#52. We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.
John D. MacDonald
#53. A black pendant in the shape of a heart lay in her hand. It was carved with roses and strung onto a velvet cord.
Teresa Flavin
#54. I've been typed as historical fiction, historical women's fiction, historical mystery, historical chick lit, historical romance - all for the same book.
Lauren Willig
#55. You killed me." My voice was unsteady.
He held me close again. "I brought you back."
"Please tell me we only have to do that once."
He whispered against my ear, "I swear I won't kill you again. Cross my heart and hope to die." It was a bad joke
Catrina Burgess
#56. The Land of Civilian was a dry bitter place where you sat in your car staring at drawn curtains and closed doors for hours on end, and where everything was a big, freaking secret.
Lily Gardner
#57. I felt it burn all the way down my throat and into my stomach. I felt like I was dying.
Jeannie Walker
#58. The morning drizzle tightened the District's notorious braided-knot commute into a noose of traffic. - Scott Drayco
B.V. Lawson
#59. Demon," the woman spat onto the road. "Well, girl, thank you. I grant no one's wishes and so you mark me 'demon.' I grant no wishes and I do as I see fit to be done. I will not answer to you, girl, nor to any one of yours, but I will always look. I am not the one who turns away.
Tamara Rendell
#60. When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.
James Crumley
#61. The northern star changes its position every ten thousand years, but friendships can last for all eternity.
- RJPeters
R.J. Peters
#62. The city was a machine of its own, continuously producing. We were constantly pumped out through its assembly line, in different forms or models. We came hardwired with different stories, dark secrets, vices, and defects. Over time, we fail and come to find our end, but the city continues onwards.
Cristina Martin
#63. 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
#64. There, amongst the angry water was the glow of green eyes, hundreds of them encompassed the entire area ... We were completely and totally surrounded. They all hung just below the water waiting for a sign to attack. There was no hope. We would all perish ...
Meredith T. Taylor
#65. The past is always with us. It echoes through every living moment, giving it depth and meaning beyond itself. Sometimes the past is so powerful, those echoes threaten to overwhelm the present.
Trish Feehan
#66. In near panic, I craned my neck to gaze over the cabin's roofline a bursting fireball.
Ed Lynskey
#67. She looked beautiful,standing there barefoot in her faded jeans. I wanted to take her in my arms, and lift her, and carry her into some untroubled future.
Instead, I left her where she was. That's not the world we live in, she'd said, and how right she was,
Stephen King
#68. A wise man does not always admit to everything he knows. And sometimes an overly-credulous friend can be a source of mild amusement."
~Sherlock Holmes
Stephanie Osborn
#70. There's a bit of a local legend about a jet heart that has turned up over the years," Flynn said. "Any time it turns up, strange things happen.
Teresa Flavin
#72. Going for it and changing what you could change-that's what success was all about.
Julie Garwood
#73. 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
#74. He was pushing fifty, with a face life had chewed on, and long wisps of graying hair parted low on one side and combed over his balding pate.
Patricia Cornwell
#75. The wind blowing through the cracks in the walls was fitting for this isolated and lonely place.
Nancy B. Brewer
#76. The boy with the haunted eyes was Dory's secret. Eli. And she knew that she had to see him again.
Teresa Flavin
#77. Who is this pompous hobgoblin? His jaw had grown square, his belly had gone soft. He was parading like a dictator in jockey shorts and argyle socks.
Genie Frisbee
#78. Both men were pictures of the kind of grief that cauterizes open wounds in memory and turns them into black scars.
B.V. Lawson
#79. Had a big trial. It was like an Errol Flynn movie.
Jeannie Walker
#80. I believe we do well to fall asleep each night with books. We enter the library of our dreams in good company then.
Robert Stephen Parry
#81. I look away, but we've caught each other. And I know this wasn't just a ghost story to him, even if it was to the others.
Jennifer Walkup
#82. Don't worry about paying me. Stay alive, child. You must save yourself. And, whatever you do, don't forget who you are
Catrina Burgess
#83. I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.
Dashiell Hammett
#84. Dead. Supposedly Suicide. That's how they'll kill Michael too. Make it look like a suicide or an accident of some sort.
H.C. Deboard
#86. The beer gave Penn a headache immediately; she blinked like a mermaid struck by sunshine.
Genie Frisbee
#87. I couldn't see why it shouldn't be my one hundred dollars.
Walter Mosley
#88. It seemed to me that I could write commercial fiction. I wasn't sure whether I could, or whether I wanted to write serious fiction at that point. So I said, 'Let me try something else,' and I wrote a mystery - but I didn't know much about it.
James Patterson
#89. It could have been worse. He could have said he wasn't a 'dessert person' and then I would have been forced to jump out of a moving car.
Saba Kapur
#90. Well, they've come a long way. To think that he now could access a secret document held in the Vatican archives, via electronic technology.
Peter J. Tanous
#91. If you can get to be you, why can't I get to be me?
Noorilhuda
#92. If you act for self-gain then no good can come of it. If you act selflessly, then you act well for all and you must not be afraid.
Rand Miller
#94. People like you end up dead. One day they are roaming about in their underpants pretending to be Superman and the next day they are killed because they jump off their roof thinking that they can fly!
Abhik Chatterjee
#95. Here lies the body of Colonel Cornell's. The rest of the fellow, I fancy, in hell is.
Mark Hodder
#96. 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
#97. The most amazing mechanism in the known universe is the human brain; it takes in information all the time then uses it, all of which is happening, of course, without human knowledge. Typical ...
Amanda Dubin
#98. Aurora, you're a child, live like one, don't act like one. Enjoy the innocence, dump the immaturity.
Noorilhuda
#99. I am taken to the police station and they place me in an interrogation room. I am there for about thirty minutes before someone walks in.
Jorge Ortiz
#100. To me, science fiction is about the sense of mystery, the sense of awe. Not 'shock and awe', just 'awe.'
J. Michael Straczynski
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