Detective stories Quotes

I like detective stories and spy novels, but I also like nonfiction, and of course cookbooks.

— Paul Wahlberg

My first two novels were quirky detective stories followed by a couple of SF/Fantasy novels.

— Paul G. Tremblay

“From what I've read of detective stories, inspectors always do want to drag the pond first.”

— A.A. Milne

“You have the Answer. Just get quiet enough to hear it. ~Pat Obuchowski”

— Laurie Stevens

“I don't greatly care for passes this early in the morning.”

— Raymond Chandler

Detective stories are the art-for-art's sake of yawning Philistinism.

— V. S. Pritchett

“Ah! Madame, I reserve the explanations for the last chapter.”

— Agatha Christie

Where there's a will there's a detective story.

— Carolyn Wells

I don’t think I would ever want to be a writer of detective stories - but I would like to be a…

— Mary Lavin

In detective stories . . . I alternately identify myself with the murderer and the huntsman-detective, but . . . there are…

— Bertrand Russell

I particular enjoy the crime writer, Walter Ellis Mosley. He does a series of Chandler-esque detective stories.

— Lennie James

I think, in a lot of ways, if you really strip down some of the most compelling novels, in a lot of…

— Laura van den Berg

Of course the modern detective story puts off its best tricks till the last, but Doyle always put his best tricks first…

— Rex Stout

I believe there's a landscape that exists underneath everything that we can see in present-day stuff. And I think that makes life…

— Stephen Hopkins

Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

— Jeffery Deaver

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

— Dorothy L. Sayers

“Do you mean to tell me, Superintendent, that this is one of those damned cases you get in detective stories where a…

— Agatha Christie

“His most characteristic detective stories end with the realization that no rational account of events is possible, and his suspense stories tend…

— Francis M. Nevins

I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn't have…

— Rex Stout

When I feel that I'm going to write a detective story, I buy a five pound box of chocolates and a ream…

— Carolyn Wells

The cinema, like the detective story, makes it possible to experience without danger all the excitement, passion and desirousness which must be…

— Carl Jung

Boredom has been used as a technique, it is a device. In Zen, boredom is used as a device: you are bored…

— Rajneesh

I also wonder why is it that so many of the movies and books that are detective stories are also the most…

— Christopher Bollen

The psychological detective story in "Equus" made Peter Shaffer's name as a playwright. But it was his next play, "Amadeus," that cemented…

— Bob Mondello

“ Lady Sylvia McCordle: Mr Weissman -- Tell us about the film you're going to make. Morris Weissman: Oh, sure. It's called…

— Julian Fellowes

The careful scholarship of the dedicated amateur mycophile R. Gordon Wasson reads like an exciting scientific detective story. Moreover, his willingness to…

— Weston La Barre

“...both Tom and I adore detective stories. Isn't that so, Tom?" [Lady Brace] "Right!" agreed her husband…"But they've got to be proper…

— Carter Dickson

The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get…

— Raymond Chandler

When, and how, and at what stage of our development did spirituality and our strange notions of religion arise? the need for…

— Vita Sackville-West

“The detective story, as created by Poe, is something as specialised and as intellectual as a chess problem, whereas the best English…

— T.S. Eliot

I have always felt a little bit uncomfortable with question [why I'm write these stories]. It's not a question that you would…

— Stephen King

“In the detective story, as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the…

— W.H. Auden

“He began as a minor imitator of Fitzgerald, wrote a novel in the late twenties which won a prize, became dissatisfied with…

— Barry N. Malzberg

Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.

— W. H. Auden

“Now that we can buy anything we want we seem to read detective stories.”

— Elizabeth Savage

I didn't know I was doing film noir, I thought they were detective stories with low lighting!

— Marie Windsor

The thing I don't like about detective stories is looking for criminals.

— Natsuo Kirino

The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.

— Philip Guedalla

The great thing about detective stories, in particular, the case can always be interesting as well as the characters.

— Shane Black

I know what kind of things I myself have been irritated by in detective stories. They are often about one or two…

— Anonymous