Quotes About Crime

Gatsby was great, but most unlikely. Gatsby was too unreal. Although I thought Fitzgerald wrote as well as any American novelist in the twentieth century, Gatsby was as far from truth as Fu Manchu. He was too soft to be what he was storied to be. Gatsby might be a cat burglar, but Gatsby was definitely not a gangster. He lacked the force of will to compel tough men to his bidding simply by force of will. He failed another test; he was too weak for a broad.

Crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavor.

It's strange that men should take up crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest.

Crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it.

Flagrante delicto ["Red-handed"].

It's sort of an action flick. You can't be that funny trying to steal diamonds.

We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.

Let me tell you, Alex. He's a crook. He's based here in Miami. He's a nasty piece of work." "He's mexican" Troy added.

It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery? And what is it that attracts us? The crime, or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable?

I've watched every episode of Poirot and Midsomer Murders on TV. I never guess the ending and I can't wait for the moment when the detective gathers all the suspects in the room and, like a magician conjuring silk scarves out of the air, makes the whole thing make sense.

But the thing is, you see -and to be honest, I don't like to mention this- I'm a bit short. There just aren't enough people getting murdered.

It was quite elementary,' returned the detective with a languid gesture of one hand.

Inspector Morse, Taggart, Lewis, Foyle's War, Endeavour, A Touch of Frost, Luther, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Cracker, Broadchurch and even bloody Maigret and Wallander – British TV would disappear into a dot on the screen without murder.

a detective must occasionally be guided by his worst imaginings – which is to say that he must put himself in the mind of the criminal.

Pünd remembered their first case together when Fraser had failed to notice that his travelling companion, on the three-fifty train from Paddington, was actually dead.

Diana Cowper had planned her funeral and she was going to need it. She was murdered about six hours later that same day.

Well, I'm investigating a murder and now a woman has gone missing, so I wasn't exactly waiting for an invitation,' Hawthorne replied.

saw it in the papers. When he took that fifty grand off Diana Cowper, it looks like he was ripping her off.' 'Maybe she knew something about him. It could have given him a reason to kill her.

think there was a part of her that was attracted to people who kill.' 'She admired them?

he was going to kick someone down a flight of stairs, of course it would be a paedophile. It reminded me of his behaviour when we had visited Raymond Clunes.

Pünd had never seen murder as a game, not even as a puzzle to be solved. His work was an examination of humanity at its darkest and most desperate. You could not solve crime unless you understood its genesis.

That's how it is with the modern police these days. They've made so many cutbacks, there's no-one left to do the job.

Inspector Morse, Taggart, Lewis, Foyle's War, Endeavour, A Touch of Frost, Luther, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Cracker, Broadchurch and even bloody Maigret and Wallander –

Actually, I'd say that both of you are fucking idiots, if you want the truth,' he began. 'You come over here like Batman and Robin and you get yourselves involved in a murder investigation. But you don't help anyone because you've got bigger fish to fry. In fact, you were obstructive. You say you made no difference to the crime scene, but that's not true.