Detective Quotes - page 3

You have a tendency, Hastings, to prefer the least likely. That, no doubt, is from reading too many detective stories. (Agatha Christie)
There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands. View quote
Agatha Christie
Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective. View quote
Agatha Christie
I'm used to that. It often seems to me that's all detective work is - wiping out your false starts and beginning again. View quote
Agatha Christie
Ah!” Poirot shook his forefinger so fiercely at me that I quailed before it. "Beware! Peril to the detective who says: ‘It is so small - it does not matter. It will not agree. I will forget it.' That way lies confusion! Everything matters. View quote
Agatha Christie
They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work. View quote
Arthur Conan Doyle
What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course. View quote
Alexander McCall Smith
I'll survive,” Floyd said. "I'm a private detective. If I don't get clouted on the head at least once a week, I'm not doing my job properly. View quote
Alastair Reynolds
I am a private detective. I am paid to be inquisitive and presumptuous. View quote
Douglas Adams
One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. View quote
Arthur C. Clarke
There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. (S. S. Van Dine)
I used to work as a private detective years and years ago. View quote
Errol Morris
I read two mysteries a day when I was a kid. All of Agatha Christie, all of 'Sherlock Holmes.' I've seen every single British detective show ever made. View quote
Maureen Johnson
I never was that boy who loved gangster films, but when I was growing up, I was obsessed with the detective Dick Tracy. It was one of my favourite movies as a kid, and he really inspired me. I would have loved to be part of that golden age of Hollywood in the 1940s. It made me want to become an actor. View quote
Ryan Gosling
I'd love to do a Columbo-type detective character in a series. View quote
Robert Carlyle
A fool with the mind of a detective is an intelligent fool, a logical fool, the worst kind, because men's logic, far from compensating for their foolishness, only duplicates it, triplicates it, makes it dangerous. View quote
Javier Marías
Being a detective isn't all about torture and murder and monsters. Sometimes it gets truly unpleasant...The fate of the world may depend on whether or not you can bring yourself to visit your relatives. View quote
Derek Landy
You be sure to throw the book at him, you hear me? I feel violated, Detective. Violated." "I'll throw this table at you if you don't give us the names we're looking for. View quote
Derek Landy
I never read detective novels. I started out in graduate school writing a more serious book. Right around that time I read 'The Day of the Jackal' and 'The Exorcist'. I hadn't read a lot of commercial fiction, and I liked them. View quote
James Patterson
The problem is that most people spend their lives looking but not truly seeing, or, as Sherlock Holmes, the meticulous English detective, declared to his partner, Dr. Watson, "You see, but you do not observe. View quote
Joe Navarro
I think these days an SF connection would be a boost to other books; I'm sure more people have read my two little detective puzzles because of the SF connection. (John Thomas Sladek)
I think it's important to recognise that 'The Da Vinci Code' opened up a vast new audience for a general readership interested in historical detective stories and research into history. View quote
Elizabeth Kostova
Anyone who has ever tried to plot a detective mystery knows that the hardest thing to come up with is motive. View quote
Elif Batuman
When I was growing up, my stepmother's sister was the chief detective in one of the adjoining towns, so she piqued my interest in crime. View quote
Karin Slaughter
Y'see, I get so bored so easily. I like to start with a clean slate each time. Sure, I'll have characters drop in and out of books but the main cast of characters always changes. Maybe I'm wrong but I think if had the same joe detective guy or gal, I wouldn't write them as well; I wouldn't do as good a job. View quote
Carl Hiaasen