Books Quote by Ross Macdonald

“A tremendous mystery unfolds in front of our senses every waking hour of our lives; a mystery more profound, more tantalizing, more penetrating and…

— Bernardo Kastrup

It seems to me that good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery…

— Anne Tyler

I love the way a story's ending can force you to read backwards. It's as if you are slowly adjusting a kaleidoscope until a…

— Catherine Brady

“It's not that I liked lunacy for the sake of lunacy, but if a writer can truly surprise me without throwing logic completely out…

— Will Schwalbe

Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.

— Steven Amsterdam

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

— Don DeLillo

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

— E. M. Forster

There are two ways to approach the writing of a mystery novel: adhere to the rules, or break them with glee.

— Sarah Weinman

“The novel is a medium of profoundly serious investigation into the human case.”

— Ford Madox Ford

Has all the trappings of a mystery novel, doesn't it?

— Patricia Cornwell

The whole process of writing a novel is having this great, beautiful idea and then spoiling it.

— Diane Johnson

I did know that the book would end with a mind-boggling trial, but I didn't know exactly how it would turn out. I like…

— James Patterson