What is needed is the imagination of the poet and the…

Which is why we cannot say of the purloined letter that, like other objects, it must be or not be in a particular place…

— Jacques Lacan

As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all.

— Edgar Allan Poe

“The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into the heavens while the mathematician tries…

— G.K. Chesterton

As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus…

— Edgar Allan Poe

“Nobody is publicly accepted as an expert on poetry unless he displays the sign of poet, mathematician, etc., but universal men want no sign…

— Blaise Pascal

A woman went so far as to hire private detectives to contact me to help bring her out of what she called a hypnotic…

— Charley Pride

Detective, I don't know where the boyfriend is, really," I said. And it was true, considering tide, current, and the habits of marine scavengers.…

— Jeff Lindsay

Then there are some minor points that strike me as suggestive - for instance, the position of Mrs. Hubbard's sponge bag, the name of…

— Agatha Christie

American violence is public life, it's a public way of life, it became a form, a detective story form. So I should think that…

— Chester Himes

This element of surprise or mystery - the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called - is of great importance in a…

— E. M. Forster

The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind…

— Ben Aaronovitch

This is really good,” Donovan Caine said, attacking his third strawberry pancake. “You sound surprised,” I said. He shrugged. “I just didn’t think an…

— Jennifer Estep

In ordinary detective novels you never see the consequences of what happens in a story in the next book. That you do in mine.

— Anonymous

Rita folded her arms around herself and peered up at me. “If you’d asked me three months ago I’d have said you were hitting…

— C.E. Murphy

Gonna rain like a cow pissin' on a flat rock" [drugstore clerk to detective Virgil Flowers] Dark of the Moon, p.7

— John Sandford