Detective Quotes

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

As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.

I went to the premiere of The Detective with Sinatra, and perhaps people jumped to conclusions. He was very protective towards me and never came on to me sexually.

There came this point where I sat down with all my notebooks and I had to start to write, when I thought: this whole notion of writing for the person who understands nothing, the average reader... He has to die! I can't have him in my head. And so the person I started writing for was the homicide detective.

I think Morse's thing about being a poor policeman but a good detective is a very good description of him.

Dad made it to Gold Shield Detective, so he always busted Robin, my oldest brother, and me. Always got caught, whatever we were doing.

While I was in jail, they handcuffed me and took me to a backroom, where a detective from the FBI and a Secret Service agent were, and they interrogated me for about three or four hours.

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

Eventually I would like to touch all the genres. I would like to do some detective stories, and I want to do a Western. I would want to do humorous Westerns.

In ordinary detective novels you never see the consequences of what happens in a story in the next book. That you do in mine.

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.

If your neighbors think you're a detective because a cop always brings you home, you might be a redneck.

I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.

What description of clouds and sunsets was to the old novelist, description of scientific apparatus and methods is to the modern Scientific Detective writer.

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.

The surprise with which a detective novel concludes should set up tragic vibrations which run backward through the entire structure.

But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own.

Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

I think these days an SF connection would be a boost to other books; I'm sure more people have read my two little detective puzzles because of the SF connection.

A detective sees death in all the various forms at least five times a week.

A really good detective never gets married.

The thought of playing a New York detective scared the hell out of me. I didn't know if people would believe me in the role just because of my physicality, which made me want to do it even more.

There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks.

I did my very first film with Kirk in Detective Story when he was the greatest, greatest star in the world. I fell in love with him, had a crush on him then.

When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.

Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.

Sure, I'll have characters drop in and out of books but the main cast of characters always changes. Maybe I'm wrong but I think if had the same joe detective guy or gal, I wouldn't write them as well; I wouldn't do as good a job.

I wanted to play a TV detective because it's a rite of passage; I wanted to experience every area of acting. I haven't done comedy or as much Shakespeare as I had intended.

If you think about it, the historian's task is like that of the detective.

I think like a detective.