Detectives Quotes · Page 3

I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.

— Shirley Jackson

I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories.

— Agatha Christie

I am a private detective. I am paid to be inquisitive and presumptuous.

— Douglas Adams

I think if you need to use a gun you're doing a lousy job as a detective.

— Joe Gores

I found out a few months after we started [True Detective] that I was pregnant.

— Michelle Monaghan

You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.

— Raymond Chandler

If I write scripts that nobody likes, I don't think we'll be doing 'True Detective.'

— Nic Pizzolatto

The detective and his criminal wear versions of the same mask.

— Jane Roberts

Yes, and many times it's frustrating, because I'm simply part of the show, and I'm not in the creative end of it,…

— Robert Stack

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

— Charley Pride

They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but…

— Arthur Conan Doyle

I just love family meetings. Very cozy, with the Christmas garlands round the fireplace and a nice pot of tea and a…

— Rick Riordan

The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of…

— Raymond Chandler

What description of clouds and sunsets was to the old novelist, description of scientific apparatus and methods is to the modern Scientific…

— Hugo Gernsback

The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.

— Rex Stout

“How different from the cosy world of Rüya's detective novels, where authors never vexed a hero with more signs than he needed.”

— Orhan Pamuk

Cormoran Strike is an amazing creation and I can't wait for his next outing. Strike is so instantly compelling that it's hard…

— Mark Billingham

I once started a detective story to make money—but I couldn't get the murder to take place! At the end of three…

— Mary McCarthy

I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintace. I don't…

— Raymond Chandler

I love the rabbit hole. I spend a lot of time looking at images, Google mapping, etc. I also love to read…

— Zachary Lazar

One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a…

— Arthur C. Clarke

If the detective should suffer overmuch from the artistic temperament, and his fellow lodger should dwell overlong upon the fairness of a…

— Loren D. Estleman

I think TV has been a little bit irresponsible in how they portray these people because homicide detectives are not brooding, tortured…

— Nathan Fillion

I've never before had the same main character appear in consecutive novels, but I liked Yancy and his attitude, and I was…

— Carl Hiaasen

I had many, many, many death threats. I couldn't open letters for a long time, because they all had to be opened…

— Hank Aaron

“Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional -- to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and…

— Kate Summerscale

“Taylor and Fitz sat at a patio table in the back of Las Palmas. The front room was filled with giggling Vanderbilt…

— J.T. Ellison

“Thus, by science I mean, first of all, a worldview giving primacy to reason and observation and a methodology aimed at acquiring…

— Alan Sokal

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

— E. M. Forster

I began wanting to create a detective who really turned the tables on that image of women, to know that you could…

— Sara Paretsky

You picked that out?” Caine asked. “That pink, plastic toy?” I turned to look at him. “I happen to have been a…

— Jennifer Estep

In many ways, I think I'm a good person for it. I mean, I'm not a musical theater dude. Or rather, I…

— James Ponsoldt

Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.

— Matthew McConaughey

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.

— James Ellroy

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

— V. S. Pritchett

I used to work as a private detective years and years ago.

— Errol Morris

Insecure people are the best detectives on planet earth.

— Nikhil Saluja

If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.

— David Herbert Donald

There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better.

— S. S. Van Dine

The criminal is a creative artist; detectives are just critics.

— Hannu Rajaniemi