Quotes from Mary Roberts Rinehart

The mystery story is two stories in one: the story of what happened and the story of what appeared to happen.

No one moved to get the whisky, from which I judged there were three pocket flasks ready for emergency.

I]t is really the ponderous books which I envy. How easy merely to put down everything you think or imagine. No holding back, no telling oneself that this does not belong, or that. No hewing to the line. No cutting. No fear of letting the interest die. No wastebasket. How wonderful. And how dull!

Providence has a curious way of letting two lives run along, each apparently independent of the other. Parallel lines they seem, hopeless of meeting. Converging lines really, destined, through long ages, by every deed that has been done to meet as a certain point and there fuse.

All lives are so divided: a step back; a plunge; and then, in desperation and despair, a little climb up God's ladder.

because we are always staring at the stars, we learn the shortness of our arms.

She had the theory of youth about love, that it was a violent thing, tempestuous and passionate. She thought that love demanded, not knowing that love gives first, and then asks.

I belong to a different generation, I suppose. The old soothing methods do not occur to us. We don't like our bruises patted or kissed. And our usual answer to any emergency is a drink.

There is a sort of melancholy pleasure to be had out of a funeral, with its pomp and ceremony, but I shrank from a death-bed.

Water rolled down the face of the old house like tears

And there are no pockets in shrouds!

In my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue...

There are lies and lies. Now and then the Great Recorder must put one on the credit side of the balance, one that has saved intolerable suffering, or has made well and happy a sick soul.

There was no laudanum and Liddy made a terrible fuss when I proposed carbolic acid, just because I had put too much on the cotton once and burned her mouth.

The complete selfishness of the aged, she thought. This girl who should have been out in her young world of sport and pleasure, living in this mortuary of a house with two dismal women.

We picked up a pilot outside the Lewes breakwater a man of few words.

instantaneous picture of a slender blue-gowned girl

I always said there were plenty of things going on here, right under our noses, that we couldn't see, she said, holding out her apron. I don't see with my nose, I remarked. What have you got there?

You can have all sorts of symptoms, with only one disease

Her life's full of exclamation points.

People that trust themselves a dozen miles from the city, in strange houses, with servants they don't know, needn't be surprised if they wake up some morning and find their throats cut.

A little work, a little sleep, a little love and it's all over.

Great loves were almost always great tragedies. Perhaps it was because love was never truly great until the element of sacrifice entered into it.

Love sees clearly, and seeing, loves on. But infatuation is blind; when it gains sight, it dies.