Detective Fiction Quotes

• It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.

  Agatha Christie

  New York, Writing, Cities

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.

  Raymond Chandler

  Winter, Grieving, Long

  The Big Sleep ch. 3 (1939)

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• Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Science, Political, Fiction

  "The Making of Kubrick's 2001". Book by Jerome Agel, 1970.

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• A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no 'atmospheric' preoccupations. Such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction. They hold up the action and introduce issues irrelevant to the main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude.

  S. S. Van Dine

  Character, Successful, Issues

  S. S. Van Dine (2015). “Twenty Rules For Writing Detective Stories”, p.6, Booklassic

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• I never read detective novels. I started out in graduate school writing a more serious book. Right around that time I read 'The Day of the Jackal' and 'The Exorcist'. I hadn't read a lot of commercial fiction, and I liked them.

  James Patterson

  Book, Writing, School

  "James Patterson interview with longtime editor Michael Pietsch". Interview with Michael Pietsch, www.usatoday.com. March 15, 2013.

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• It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.

  Guillermo Cabrera Infante

  Mean, Writing, Literature

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• I am talking about the general psychological health
  of the species, man. He needs the existence of
  mysteries. Not their solution.

  John Fowles

  Men, Psychological Health, Talking

  John Fowles (1968). “The Magus”, Pan

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• The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Artist, Creative, Criticism

  The Innocence of Father Brown "The Blue Cross" (1911)

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• It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.

  Erle Stanley Gardner

  Writing, Stories, Checks

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• There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel,
  and the deader the corpse the better.

  S. S. Van Dine

  Detectives, Novel, Corpses

  S. S. Van Dine (2015). “Twenty Rules For Writing Detective Stories”, p.4, Booklassic

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• The detective story itself is in a dilemma. It is a vein which is in danger of being worked out, the demand is constant, the powers of supply variable, and the reader, with each one he absorbs, grows a little more sophisticated and harder to please, while the novelist, after each one he writes, becomes a little more exhausted.

  Cyril Connolly

  Writing, Novelists, Stories

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• Detective fiction could not have existed without Edgar Allan Poe.

  Giles Foden

  Fiction, Detectives, Allan Poe

  "A one-word response to Engdahl" by Giles Foden, www.theguardian.com. October 1, 2008.

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• Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Stories, Detectives

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• I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

  Dashiell Hammett

  Thinking, Literature, Influence

  "Mystery writer" by Margaret Atwood, www.theguardian.com. February 15, 2002.

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• Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.

  Mickey Spillane

  Book, Writing, Literature

  "Writers on writing". Book by Jon Winokur, 1986.

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• Reading my way all the way through Sherlock Holmes gave me a lifelong love for crime and detective fiction.

  Stanley Bing

  Reading, Fiction, Way

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• It's no secret - I love detective fiction. One of the reasons I love being in London is because I like to watch all the shows on TV. I watch them all.

  Patti Smith

  Secret, Watches, Fiction

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• Marshall Jevons is the pioneer for integrating economics and detective fiction, and The Mystery of the Invisible Hand is another fine effort in this genre.

  Tyler Cowen

  Hands, Invisible Hand, Effort

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• I've always had a great fondness for English detective fiction such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.

  Kazuo Ishiguro

  Fiction, Detectives, Christie

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• My father taught me to love detective fiction writers such as Raymond Chandler. When I decided to have a hard-boiled detective series I did a lot of studying before I wrote the first book. I learned police procedure, the California criminal law, and many areas outside my expertise.

  Sue Grafton

  Father, Book, Law

  Interview with Elise Cooper, crimespreemag.com. August 21, 2015.

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