Murder Mysteries Quotes

• Because there's nothing wrong with you... that can't be fixed.

  Libba Bray

  Fixed

  Libba Bray (2011). “Beauty Queens”, p.45, Scholastic Inc.

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• Murder mysteries are puzzles that are fun to resolve.

  Kathy Reichs

  Fun, Mystery, Resolve

  "Face to face with death" by Liz Hoggard, www.theguardian.com. May 22, 2006.

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• San Francisco would be a good location for a murder mystery.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  San Francisco, Would Be, Location

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• I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.

  Agatha Christie

  Literature, Quiet, Introvert

  Agatha Christie (1971). “And Then There Were None”

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• ...and then a murder mystery will occur.

  Natsuki Takaya

  Mystery, Murder

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• I like murder mysteries, the Agatha Christie kinds of things where you know that it's all going to be neatly wound up at the end.

  Stephen Sondheim

  Kind, Mystery, Ends

  "Maestro of Broadway". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. July 5, 2005.

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• People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

  Denise Mina

  Reading, People, Fiction

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• You can approach 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' in a variety or combination of ways: as a startlingly eccentric hobby; as a series of unresolved murder mysteries; as the manifestation of one woman's peculiar psychic life; as a lesson in forensics; as a metaphor for the fate of women; as a photographic study.

  Robert Gottlieb

  Fate, Psychics, Hobbies

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• Curiosity, easily frightened, takes refuge in puzzles, murder mysteries, and spectator sports.

  Mason Cooley

  Sports, Curiosity, Mystery

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• The nice thing about your police procedural as opposed to your classic murder mystery is that in a murder mystery you don't know who did it. Whereas in a police procedural you know, you know everything often and you're watching the police home in.

  Terry Pratchett

  Nice, Home, Police

  Source: bobneilson.org

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• I read murder mysteries. I exercise 40 minutes a day. I watch videotapes while I exercise. I listen to audiotapes when I am in my car. And I try to stay in three different centuries.

  Grover Norquist

  Exercise, Car, Trying

  "Grover Norquist: The Soul of the New Machine" by Michael Scherer, www.motherjones.com. January/February 2004.

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• A detective with his murder mystery, a chemist seeking the structure of a new compound, use little of the formal and logical modes of reasoning. Through a series of intuitions, surmises, fancies, they stumble upon the right explanation, and have a knack of seizing it when it once comes within reach.

  Gilbert N. Lewis

  Intuition, Littles, Fancy

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• Then, like a born and bred asshole, he added to the sheriff, "He writes murder mysteries.

  Josh Lanyon

  Writing, Mystery, Born

  Josh Lanyon (2002). “A Dangerous Thing”, Millivres Books

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• All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James.

  Donna Leon

  School, Television, Ruth

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• She understood now why her friend Elizabeth, with her near-genius, analytical mind gave wide berth to murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and horror stories, and read only romance novels. Because, by God, when a woman picked up one of those steamy books, she had a firm guarantee that there would be a Happily-Ever-After. That though the world outside those covers could bring such sorrow and disappointment and loneliness, between those covers, the world was a splendid place to be.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Disappointment, Loneliness, Book

  FaceBook post by Karen Marie Moning from Oct 27, 2014

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• ... in the nineteen-thirties ... the most casual reader of murder mysteries could infallibly detect the villain, as soon as there entered a character who had recently washed his neck and did not commit mayhem on the English language.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Character, Nineteen, Necks

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• I really wanted to write an adventure story, a murder-mystery that was set during the gold-rush years in New Zealand.

  Eleanor Catton

  Writing, Adventure, Years

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• The show [Shots Fired] is an autopsy of our criminal justice system, a space where the conversation surrounding the issues in our country is offering a seat at the table to all the voices to be heard, a murder mystery, and grassroots look at our own humanity as we move through the parts and pieces of the story.

  Aisha Hinds

  Country, Moving, Voice

  Source: www.theaquarian.com

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• I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with In the Valley of Elah. I said, "Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax." And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery.

  Paul Haggis

  Two, Relax, Valleys

  "Director Paul Haggis Talks THIRD PERSON, Putting the Cast Together, How He’d Like to Do an Extended Version, and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 20, 2014.

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• Why are murder mysteries so popular? There's a 3-part "formula" (if you want to call it that) for a genre novel: (1) Someone the reader likes and relates to (2) overcomes increasingly difficult obstacles (3) to reach an important goal. The more important the goal, the stronger the novel. And the most important goal that any of us have is survival. That's why murder mysteries are more gripping than a story titled "Who Stole My TV Set.

  Lois Duncan

  Goal, Survival, Important

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• It has long been a source of wonder to me why the leading criminological writers--men like Edmund Lester Pearson, H. B. Irving, Filson Young, Canon Brookes, William Bolitho, and Harold Eaton--have not devoted more space to the Greene tragedy; for here, surely, is one of the outstanding murder mysteries of modern times--a case practically unique in the annals of latter-day crime.

  S. S. Van Dine

  Book, Unique, Men

  S.S. Van Dine (1956). “The Greene Murder Case”

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• As much as I adore Agatha Christie - and I think people make this claim about murder mysteries in general - it's often a very conservative mode of storytelling. Usually it's the greedy, climbing, new-money slimeball who wants to take from the aristocracy.

  Christopher Bollen

  Thinking, Climbing, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself -- ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide.

  Walker Percy

  Suicide, Thinking, Opposites

  Walker Percy (2011). “The Moviegoer”, p.84, Open Road Media

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• Paperbacks weren't considered real books in the book trade. Up till then it was just murder mysteries, potboilers, 25-cent pocket books sold in newsstands. When the New York publishers started publishing quality paperbacks, there was no place to buy them.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  New York, Real, Book

  "MENLO PARK / Read it and weep: Kepler's closes" by Alan Gathright, www.sfgate.com. September 01, 2005.

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• Amaryllis in Blueberry is a rich, evocative story about an unusual family that will sweep readers away to another place and time. Amaryllis's voice is a spellbinding and unique blend of naivet and wisdom. A perfect melding of family saga, murder mystery and a meditation on faith, loyalty and love, this novel will both haunt and entertain you.

  Susan Wiggs

  Loyalty, Unique, Voice

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