Mystery Novels Quotes

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

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Reading, Writing

  57 Copy quote
• 

  Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand.

  Neil Armstrong

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  "Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 2005.

  164 Copy quote

  Show source

• The mystery story is two stories in one: the story of what happened and the story of what appeared to happen.

  Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Two, Stories, Happened

  9 Copy quote

• The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Life, Obvious Things, World

  Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901).

  113 Copy quote

  Show source

• Detective stories keep alive a view of the world which ought to be true. Of course people read them for fun ... But underneath they feed a hunger for justice ... you offer to divert them, and you show them by stealth the orderly world in which we should all try to be living.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Fun, Views, Justice

  Dorothy L. Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh (1999). “Thrones, Dominations”, p.126, Macmillan

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I had a bookstore I would make all the mystery novels hard to find.

  Demetri Martin

  Funny, Life, Bookstores

  36 Copy quote
• 

  The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Friendship

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.331, Princeton University Press

  164 Copy quote

  Show source

• The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Family, Happiness

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.31, First Avenue Editions

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I am thickening my plots, I like to think 'What if ... What if ... ' Thus my imagination can move from the likely, which everyone can think of, to the unlikely-but-possible, my preferred plot.

  Patricia Highsmith

  Moving, Thinking, Imagination

  13 Copy quote

• Ah, there's nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to civilization - this tea ritual and the detective novel.

  Ayn Rand

  Civilization, Two, Tea

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.307, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.

  Anais Nin

  Spiritual, Life Lesson, Knowledge

  22 Copy quote

• make no mistake about it, the detective-story is part of the literature of escape, and not of expression.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Mistake, Expression, Stories

  6 Copy quote

• One key to the distinction between mystery and suspense writing involves the relative positions of hero and reader. In the ideal mystery novel, the readers is two steps behind the detective.... The ideal suspense reader, on the other hand, is two steps ahead of the hero.

  Carolyn Wheat

  Hero, Writing, Hands

  5 Copy quote

• 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'!'

  Harlan Coben

  Ideas, People, Lasts

  4 Copy quote

• A mystery novel localizes the awesome force of the real death outside the book, winds it tightly in a plot.

  Don DeLillo

  Real, Book, Wind

  Don DeLillo, Thomas DePietro (2005). “Conversations with Don DeLillo”, p.103, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader? Do you promise to observe seemly moderation in the use of gangs, conspiracies, Super Criminals and Lunatics and utterly and forever to forswear Mysterious Poisons unknown to science? Will you honor the King's English? ... If you fail to keep your promise, may other writers steal your plots and your pages swarm with misprints.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Kings, Forever, Honor

  10 Copy quote

• It's important to write a mystery novel where the takeaway is not a giveaway - where something could be read over and over.

  Jimenez Lai

  Writing, Important, Takeaways

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.

  A. C. Benson

  Beautiful, World, Certain

  37 Copy quote

• Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.

  Jean Cocteau

  God, Infinity, Known

  Jean Cocteau (1967). “The Infernal Machine: And Other Plays”, p.35, New Directions Publishing

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Katherine Heiny's work does something magical: elevates the mundane so that it has the stakes of a mystery novel, gives women's interior lives the gravity they so richly deserve -- and makes you laugh along the way.

  Lena Dunham

  Giving, Laughing, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• [On Dashiell Hammett:] ... he is so hard-boiled you could roll him on the White House lawn.

  Dorothy Parker

  White, House, Lawns

  Dorothy Parker (1970). “A month of Saturdays: thirty-one famous pieces by "Constant Reader"”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Jobs, Keys, Poetry

  Natalie Goldberg (2016). “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within”, p.38, Shambhala Publications

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had thought for years, probably 30 or 40 years, that it would be a lot of fun to try my hand at a classic English mystery novel... I love that form very much because the reader is so familiar with all of the types of characters that are in there that they already identify with the book.

  Alan Bradley

  Fun, Book, Character

  "Book Talk: Alan Bradley on young sleuths and TV series". March 8, 2013, www.reuters.com. Interview with Noreen O'Donnell.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My father was sleepless most of his life. So by the age of five, I was awake with him all night long, watching bad television or we'd lie in the same bed, and I'd read my comic books while he read his latest spy or mystery novel.

  Sherman Alexie

  Father, Lying, Book

  "Encore: Living Outside Tribal Lines". "Moyers & Company" with Bill Moyers, billmoyers.com. May 31, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Linwood Barclay

  Dream, Book, Writing

  5 Copy quote