Quotessence
Home / Topics / Detective Quotes

Detective Quotes

Browse 155 quotes about Detective.

Detective Quotes

“He began as a minor imitator of Fitzgerald, wrote a novel in the late twenties which won a prize, became dissatisfied with his work, stopped writing for a period of years. When he came back it was to BLACK MASK and the other detective magazines with a curious and terrible fiction which had never been seen before in the genre markets; Hart Crane and certainly Hemingway were writing of people on the edge of their emotions and their possibility but the genre mystery markets were filled with characters whose pain was circumstantial, whose resolution was through action; Woolrich's gallery was of those so damaged that their lives could only be seen as vast anticlimax to central and terrible events which had occurred long before the incidents of the story. Hammett and his great disciple, Chandler, had verged toward this more than a little, there is no minimizing the depth of their contribution to the mystery and to literature but Hammett and Chandler were still working within the devices of their category: detectives confronted problems and solved (or more commonly failed to solve) them, evil was generalized but had at least specific manifestations: Woolrich went far out on the edge. His characters killed, were killed, witnessed murder, attempted to solve it but the events were peripheral to the central circumstances. What I am trying to say, perhaps, is that Hammett and Chandler wrote of death but the novels and short stories of Woolrich *were* death. In all of its delicacy and grace, its fragile beauty as well as its finality. Most of his plots made no objective sense. Woolrich was writing at the cutting edge of his time. Twenty years later his vision would attract a Truffaut whose own influences had been the philosophy of Sartre, the French nouvelle vague, the central conception that nothing really mattered. At all. But the suffering. Ah, that mattered; that mattered quite a bit.”

MysteryCrimeDetectivesCrime FictionNoirDetectiveCrime ThrillerMystery SuspenseMystery ThrillerNoir FictionDetective StoriesErnest HemingwayDetective FictionDetective NovelF Scott FitzgeraldSartreCornell WoolrichJean Paul SartreDetective NovelsHart CraneRaymond ChandlerDashiel HammettDetective NoirMystery And Crime DramaFrancois TruffautFrançois TruffautTruffaut
Book:The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich
Create image

“My last name is Poirot, like Agatha Christie's famous detective Hercule Poirot; no relation to the fictional character.”

RelationFamous QuotesFamousNameDetectiveKen PoirotKen Poirot QuoteKen Poirot QuotesAuthor Ken PoirotFictional CharacterFamous QuoteAgatha ChristieHercule PoirotFictionalAgathaLast NamePoirotFictional QuotesDetective QuotesPoirot QuotesLast Name QuoteName QuotesFictional QuoteAgatha Christie QuoteAgatha Christie QuotesRelation QuotesAgatha Christie S DetectiveAgatha Christie S QuoteAgatha Christie S QuotesAgatha Christine SAgatha QuoteAgatha QuotesDetective QuoteFamous DetectiveFamous Detective QuoteFamous Detective QuotesFictional Character QuoteFictional Character QuotesHerculeHercule Poirot QuoteHercule Poirot QuotesHercule QuoteHercule QuotesLast Name QuotesName QuoteNo RelationNo Relation QuoteNo Relation QuotesPoirot QuoteRelation Quote
Author:Ken Poirot
Create image

“This is how these people work! They made the Canterbury look like Mars. It wasn’t. They made the Donnager look like the Belt. It wasn’t. Now it looks like the whole damn thing’s Earth? Follow the pattern. It probably isn’t! You never, never put that kind of accusation out there until you know the score. You look. You listen. You’re quiet, fercrissakes, and when you know, then you can make your case.”

ProofDetectiveCaseThe ExpanseMiller
Book:Leviathan Wakes
Create image

“To catch the bad guys, you've got to think like a bad guy - and that's why all the best detectives have a dark side...”

CrimePoliceBritishLondonDetectivesPolice OfficerCrime FictionDetectiveCrime ThrillerPolice OfficersDetective StoriesDetective FictionDetective NovelBased On Real EventsBased On A True StoryHard BoiledLondon CityBritish CrimeBritish DetectivesCrime QuotesDetective QuotesHard Boiled DetectiveTrue DetectiveDetective Noir CrimeBritish Detective FictionCrime QuoteDetective NoirDetective StoryBased On True StoriesBritish Crime AuthorBritish DetectiveBritish Detective ThrillerBritish Thriller WritersBritish ThrillersCrime Fiction Authors
Book:The Theseus Paradox
Create image

“Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition- and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, evEryThing is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scare here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking TO do- clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth-the naked shining truth.”

TruthMysteryDetectiveAnalogyArcheology
Author:Agatha Christie
Create image

“You’re a detective? Really?” “That’s what it says on the waistband of my underwear. Abe, lay one of our cards on the man.” Abe already had a business card in his hand. He set it in the middle of the desk, oriented so McMahon could read it without touching it. “I’m Abe. That’s Duff. Forgive him. He was raised in the woods by a family of sasquatch, and not the cultured kind of sasquatch, either.” “I miss my hairy momma.” Duff kissed his fist and pointed at the ceiling. “Skookum Valley ain’t the same without you, Mom!”

HumorComedyMysteryDetectiveBigfoot
Book:Where Art Thou?
Create image

“Stepping back, Anika smiled at her prisoners and clicked open the Zippo. Its flame hopped to life. Wasting no time, she underhand-tossed the lighter through the air. It hit the middle of its target, and the banner exploded into flames.”

ActionMysteryAdventureUnpredictableIntrigueDetectivePolitical ThrillerEmotionally ChargedVigilante JusticeCrime Story
Book:Homecoming Queen: A Small-Town Political Thriller
Create image

“It all came back to something I’d figured out once about the detective business. There were two ways to go along: underground or on top. I never found out which was best. Underground you had the element of surprise on your side, but it was harder to move around. On top you went everywhere, taking cracks at everybody, and everybody taking cracks at you. You had to be tough to play it that way. Well, I was tough.”

DetectivePrivate InvestigatorPrivate Investigators
Book:Solomon's Vineyard
Create image

“It’s not like the movies. There are rarely gunshots or explosions, bad guys hunting you down. You follow a lead to where it takes you. Most times it takes you to a dead end and you have to return to the beginning and follow another. Usually, you have to follow dozens of leads before you get anywhere. But, sometimes, you get lucky, and every door you open leads you to another until, finally, you stumble upon the truth. It’s not about justice, you see, or money—God knows it’s not about money. It’s about bringing the truth to light. It’s not glamorous, but it makes the world a little more truthful a place. That’s enough for me.”

TruthMysteryInvestigationNoirDetectivePrivate InvestigatorMystery FictionDetective FictionPiPrivate Dick
Book:Porno Valley
Create image

“But he couldn't feel self-pity in the face of the memorial. He hadn't lost nearly enough as these children, who'd lost their homeland and, in many cases,their whole families. Perhaps they had gained something, too, though. They had at least escaped the concentration camps, been taken in by good, caring families, and had grown up to live their lives in relative freedom.”

MissingCrimeMurder MysteryDetectiveSuspense ThrillerHuman TraffickingInspector BanksPeter RobinsonStrange Affair
Book:Strange Affair
Create image