Quotes About Investigation

Crazy damn job, looking for dead bodies.

We don't just look for dead bodies. That day, we were actually looking for a cache of heroin somebody'd thrown off a bridge.

He stepped back to let Pendergast do his thing, but he was surprised to see the agent not going through his usual rigmarole, with the test tubes and tweezers and loupes appearing out of nowhere and interminable fussing around.

spaces again. I guess one citation wasn't enough." Pendergast pulled out the previous ticket. "You mean this?" "That's right." Pendergast neatly tore it in half and tucked the pieces back into his pocket. The chief frowned.

For reasons steeped in flawed intuition, differing cultural norms, and superstition, detectives in Perugia almost immediately focused on Amanda Knox as the target of their investigation. It was this "junk profiling" that caused them to believe that because she didn't weep for the victim in public, she didn't weep in private. This lack of public display of grief caused them to falsely believe she killed her friend.

Eight months passed before they were actually charged with murder: That was how long it took to develop the "evidence." In the United States, suspects typically cannot be held more than 72 hours without being charged.

Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast.

Understanding how things fail is the most important component in solving engineering problems.

In other words, the case, almost from the beginning, was more about covering up mistakes and protecting the careers of powerful people than in finding the truth about who killed Meredith Kercher.

"This affair must all be unraveled from within." He [Hercule Poirot] tapped his forehead. "These little gray cells. It is 'up to them'—as you say over here."

The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.

It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without." ~ Poirot

If you are to be Hercule Poirot, you must think of everything.

It often seems to me that's all detective work is, wiping out your false starts and beginning again." "Yes, it is very true, that. And it is just what some people will not do. They conceive a certain theory, and everything has to fit into that theory. If one little fact will not fit it, they throw it aside. But it is always the facts that will not fit in that are significant.

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.

One of us in this very room is in fact the murderer.

Mr. Satterthwaite looked cheered. Suddenly an idea struck him. His jaw fell. "My goodness," he cried, "I've only just realized it! That rascal, with his poisoned cocktail! Anyone might have drunk it! It might have been me!" "There is an even more terrible possibility that you have not considered," said Poirot. "Eh?" "It might have been me," said Hercule Poirot.

I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.

Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective.

Poirot said placidly, "One does not, you know, employ merely the muscles. I do not need to bend and measure the footprints and pick up the cigarette ends and examine the bent blades of grass. It is enough for me to sit back in my chair and think. It is this – " he tapped his egg-shaped head – "this, that functions!

When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island.

I admit," I said, "that a second murder in a book often cheers things up." - Hastings

No innocent person ever has an alibi.

If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid.