Quotes About Detective

it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they did not require

A detective is only human. The less of a detective, the more human he is. Henry was not much of a detective, and his human

but my schadenfreude was dampened by the knowledge that if Detective Hernandez didn't have it in for me before, she sure as shootin' did now.

said, leaving Langdon and moving several yards to a portable table covered with investigation

Clemens laughed until he began coughing again. "Don't you see, James?" he said at last. "You and I are only minor characters in this story about the Great Detective. Our little lives and endings mean nothing to the God-Writer, whoever the sonofabitch might be.

His exterior appearance was polished, and yet it did little to hide the real man inside from anyone who did business with him, the rough and violent ex-cop who had found a much better life as a private detective maneuvering in and out of the countless cracks that existed between laws. I

We would never call inexplicable little insights 'hunches,' for fear of drawing the universe's attention. But they happened, and you knew you had been in the proximity of one that had come through if you saw a detective kiss his or her fingers and touch his or her chest where a pendant to Warsha, patron saint of inexplicable inspirations, would, theoretically, hang.

We need expert help and Mr Worcester is the soul of discretion." "It's a consulting detective's middle name," I said. "Sometimes I don't even know what I'm investigating.

some paw prints on the sidewalk. Something that might help us figure out which way

man in a purple tailcoat. He looked around suspiciously. "Don't tell anybody, but I did it with the candlestick in the library." "That's Professor Plum!

I'd never been around a homicide detective. But I grew up reading crime novels and had an idea what to expect. It turned out those books hadn't made me as smart as I thought.

This," the Saint said to nobody in particular, "sounds like one of those stories that fellow Charteris might write.

You know what I think? I think you need some chocolate," said Lucy. "I know I could sure use some. "It's not every day that a headless body turns up and I have to cover it.

I really believe that studying organization, even in the form of studying detective story organization, is very, very valuable for a playwright, a budding playwright.

The Nursery Crime Division was not disbanded and is still active to this day.

The best crime novels are not about how a detective works on a case; they are about how a case works on a detective.

As I work, I see my writing - each scene, each chapter, each section, each book - in three-act structures and classic myths, and I analyze them through the handy filter of the detective story.

the detective's highest talent lay in the gentle art of seeking favours under the guise of conferring them!

Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.

Two things become clear to me. The first is that this is a world where good and evil struggle in all levels of existence. I want to be a force for good. The second thing is that I need to find employment if I want to obtain any more currency. As I'm sure is the case for many earthlings, I find my answer on the television. My martian name is J'onn J'onzz. Here on Earth I shall be known as John Jones. Police detective John Jones. I'll be one of the good guys.

Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The V motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down--from high flat temples--in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond Satan.

Nora was eating a piece of cold duck with one hand and working on a jig-saw puzzle with the other when I got home. I thought you'd gone to live with her, she said. You used to be a detective: find me a brownish piece shaped something like a snail with a long neck. Piece of duck or puzzle?...

Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down—from high flat temples—in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.

To swipe the immortal lines uttered by Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, a great mystery should take the lid off life and let [you] look at the works.