Quotes About Mystery

I looked at Spangler. He was leaning forward so far he was almost out of his chair. He looked as if he was going to jump. I couldn't think of any reason why he should jump, so I thought he must be excited. I looked back at Breeze. He was about as excited as a hole in the wall.

It could have been a beautiful friendship," Beifus said with a sigh. "Except for the ice pick, of course.

After a moment I pushed my chair back and went over to the french windows. I opened the screens and stepped out on to the porch. The night was all around, soft and quiet. The white moonlight was cold and clear, like the justice we dream of but don't find.

The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published violate this law. ( Casual Notes on the Mystery Novel , 1949)

She approached me with enough sex appeal to stampede a businessmen's lunch and tilted her head to finger a stray, but not very stray, tendril of softly glowing hair. Her smile was tentative, but could be persuaded to be nice.

He reached for the card without excitement, read it, turned it over and read the back with as much care as the front. There was nothing on the back to read.

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

If I had a razor, I'd cut your throat - just to see what ran out of it. Caterpillar blood, I said.

I lit a cigarette and dragged a smoking stand beside the chair. The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips. I looked the place over. You can't tell anything about an outfit like that. They might be making millions, and they might have the sheriff in the back room, with his chair tilted against the safe.

A slice of spumoni wouldn't have melted on her now.

The latter think the shortest distance between two points is from a blonde to a bed.

No visible scars. Hair dark brown, some gray. Eyes brown. Height six feet, one half inch. Weight about one ninety. Name Philip Marlowe. Occupation private detective.

Got any good ideas, soldier?" "Lots of them. Somebody gunned Geiger. Somebody got gunned by Geiger, who ran away. Or it was two other fellows. Or Geiger was running a cult and made blood sacrifices in front of that totem pole. Or he had chicken for dinner and liked to kill his chickens in the front parlor.

The butler went away among the abominable plants. The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings.

She was sitting behind a black glass desk that looked like Napoleon's tomb and she was smoking a cigarette in a black holder that was not quite as long as a rolled umbrella.

I didn't ask to see you. You sent for me. I don't mind your ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a Scotch bottle. I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.

I opened the other envelope. It contained a photograph of a girl. The pose suggested a natural ease, or a lot of experience in being photographed. It showed darkish hair which might possibly have been red, a wide clear forehead, serious eyes, high cheekbones, nervous nostrils and a mouth which was not giving anything away. It was a fine-drawn, almost a taut face, and not a happy one

I suppose you do this to all the clients," she said softly.

Oh sure, I'm her husband. That's what the record says. I'm the three white steps and the bug green front door and the brass knocker you rap one long and two short and the maid lets you into the hundred-dollar whorehouse.

I was in the deep water. It was dark and unclear and the taste of the salt was in my mouth.

We were very much in love—the wild, mysterious, improbable kind of love that never comes but once.

Whoever had done it had meant business. Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.

My opinion means nothing. It happens every day. The most unlikely people commit the most unlikely crimes. Nice old ladies poison whole families. Clean-cut kids commit multiple holdups and shootings. Bank managers with spotless records going back twenty years are found out to be long-term embezzlers. And successful and popular and supposedly happy novelists get drunk and put their wives in the hospital. We know damn little about what makes even our best friends tick.

They never tell you why they are doing anything. That way you don't find out they don't know themselves.