Quotes from Colin Dexter

My life will not be significantly impoverished if I never see another Shakespearian comedy.

He sighed and knew that life was full of 'if only' for everyone

she had the inestimable merit of being interesting.

No, Lewis. Unlike you, I've lived a very sheltered life. I have tried to get invited along to one of these porno-parties, but everybody seems to think I'm above such things.

As he lay abed on Sunday, 21 September, Morse was beset by the nagging feeling that there was so much to be done if only he could summon up the mental resolve to begin. It was like deferring a long-promised letter; the intention lay on the mind so heavily that the simple task seemed progressively to assume almost gigantic proportions.

A man is little use when his wife's a widow. Scottish proverb

For me, it's always been the initial business - just getting a word down, any words down, on a blank piece of paper. Once I've done that, I'm away. Beginning is one half of the deed.

Those who are absent, by its means become present: correspondence is the consolation of life. —VOLTAIRE, Philosophical Dictionary

Facing the media is more difficult than bathing a leper. —MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA

Was he really looking forward to it? They were usually a bit of anticlimax, these things. Stillit would do him good. Or serve him right

Morse firmly believed that there was nothing so unsatisfactory as this kind of pornography; he liked it hot or not at all.