Mystery Novel Quotes

“She gave him a brief, mysterious smile. “You were watching me. I felt you before I saw you.”
So? This is a crime? he thought, determined not to retreat.
Did you study cultural physiology?
The eyes of Italian males are hardwired from birth to examine, observe, even caress, if you will, the female form. Any form. Some we glance at. Some we don’t really see, like our mothers and sisters. Some we ignore, and some we store as reference for the future. Got it?”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Spare me the Deepak Chopra tribute.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Sneering has gotten a bad rap, he thought, walking rapidly up the hill from his car. All that unleashed adrenaline got his legs pumping. Why is it that only villains are allowed to sneer? Surely such a display of disapproval could be used to better all humankind. If there was more sneering in the world, people might think before they acted.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Of course killing Iraqis for Jesus so we can get their oil...”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Seeing the pictures every evening while finishing the New York Times and waiting for dinner was his joy. Francine was unaware of his pleasure.  He could not reveal these feelings to the children or Francine. Silly. A father loves his children but can’t speak of it for fear of being made trivial.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Is this nuclear physics or are you ordering a cake?
It's a cake. You eat it,,you don't frame it.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“His inner, unexpressed love was enough. This would sustain him, and no one would have to know. Does unexpressed love exist? Or does it have to be believed but not heard, like a tree falling in the forest with no humans in sight. Unexpressed and nothing.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Ever since third grade you make mushroom clouds out of mushroom soup.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Frank knew the correct term was sword rapier and that it was a reproduction of the kind of weapon used by armies in seventeenth-century Europe.
Made of high carbon steel, the blade was as long as a yardstick and gained another six or seven inches in its scabbard. The cup hilt indicated its Spanish roots. Less than three pounds in all, he had to admit it was easy to carry, fitting close to his body. Then why the aversion, the dread?
Was it some pacifist leanings? Or the distaste for a weapon that might end a life?”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“I don’t give a holy fuck about your rules. Do what I say now.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Are you a messenger from god”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“This is a class in American Literature and not an arena for extreme full-contact judo”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“She couldn't think of what to make for dinner that would include Ensure, lettuce and
chocolate cake. She called Mr. Wong's. Again.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“One city and four afterthoughts. Yet, if the residents of Manhattan got down from their self-reverential pedestals, they’d soon realize that Manhattan was the most provincial of towns, albeit wealthier. A more than superficial look would reveal a mini Fort Wayne every three blocks. Duplicates of supermarket, pharmacy, candy store, florist, so that the vertical dwellers need journey no more than three blocks in either direction from their front door. Crossing to a fourth block would only bring repetition of services, with no advantage and a longer walk home.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Outpouring of emotion—grief, love, affection, anger, distrust . . . fill in the blanks. Emoticons replaced words on the internet. Without words, cohesive thought was replaced by an impulse signified by a smiling or sad face. Where would it end? Driving him to need an outpouring of wine, he expected.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“You're a private detective.”
"That's right.”
“What do you detect?”
“Right now? Subtle condescension.”
― Dann McDorman, West Heart Kill

“Quinn's Theory of Funeral Secrets; 'At a funeral we acknowledge the life of the person and maybe the many identities,actions and secret lives of which the family and friends were unaware. For some a shock, for others a relief.”
― Hazel Edwards, Celebrant Sleuth: I Do ... or Die (#1 'Celebrant Sleuth' series.

“The women of Republican times are silent. Rarely calling for comment in the history books, they are named on tombstones, flit in arrogant beauty through poetry, or appear even as monsters of iniquity in a court of law. Yet they themselves do not speak and they have left no literature of any sort of their own. In this book, however, Roman women live and love and hate anything but silently. (author's note To the Reader in 'A Roman Death'.)”
― Joan O'Hagan

“That girl wasn’t who she wanted to. be anymore, but sometimes you don’t get to choose who you are.”
― Margaux MacAllister

“And let me tell you something, mademoiselle – in the course of my experience I have known five cases of wives murdered by devoted husbands, and twenty-two of husbands murdered by devoted wives. Les femmes, they obviously keep up appearances better.”
― Agatha Christie, Three Act Tragedy

“L.A. was still hot. The Devil Winds were blowing. Bad things happen on nights like this.”
― Ingraffia Sam

“People hunger for epiphany, you think, they clamor for it, but given a chance, who among us would actually recognize it? Or, having seen it, would choose to act?”
― Dann McDorman, West Heart Kill

“It felt like a miracle happened that day, a miracle named Emily.”
― Katerina Sukova, No Sleep: A Young Adult Mystery Novel

“For a second, I was feeling like myself again. Unstoppable, fierce, and determined. All the things I have always desired to be.”
― Katerina Sukova, No Sleep: A Young Adult Mystery Novel

“Sometimes there is a summer evening so perfect the very air seems charged with magic. In England, such evenings are not only rare, they are intensely brittle.”
― Margaret Buntrock, Pains Hill

“The man who entered looked even younger than Inspector Slaughter had expected. His paperwork said he was twenty-seven years old, but he looked more like twenty. And his height bordered on the ridiculous. But it wouldn’t do to comment. Slaughter rose and moved from behind the desk to shake hands.”
― Lisa M. Lane, Murder at Old St. Thomas's

“He held out his hand. “Dante Gabriel Rossetti,” he said. “You will have heard of me.”
Jo shook his hand and frowned. “No, but you obviously think I should have.”
At his crestfallen expression, she smiled. Everyone had heard of Rossetti.”
― Lisa M. Lane, Murder at an Exhibition

“I'm a sucker for mystery stories,
I've been since my adolescent days.
But I never picked up a novel in my life
My world of fiction lives in radio plays.

Never have I had the patience to sit
through hours of fiction reading.
So I dig up classic radio dramas,
to keep me company while writing.

Nevertheless, fiction does matter,
One way or another fiction matters.
Naskarean universe is non-fiction,
Yet I say, fiction indeed matters.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“It is beckoning you to discover, to unearth your darkness.”
― Megan Mary, The Dream Haunters

“My World of Fiction (The Sonnet, 1656)

I'm a sucker for mystery stories,
I've been since my adolescent days.
But I never picked up a novel in my life
My world of fiction lives in radio plays.

Never have I had the patience to sit
through hours of fiction reading.
So I dig up classic radio dramas,
to keep me company while writing.

Unfortunately America never quite
mastered the art of radio theatre,
so when I think of radio drama,
I think Radio 4 and Radio 4 extra.

Also, I detaste post-apocalyptic fiction,
Pilgrim of life I, find them most drab.
Modern world is lifeless enough as it is,
I detaste the romanticizing of graveyard.

Nevertheless, fiction does matter,
One way or another fiction matters.
Naskarean universe is non-fiction,
Yet I say, fiction indeed matters.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee