110 Quotes About Detectives

I see myself as an instrument of justice, not a dispenser of it." -Detective Thanet.

Poor darling," he said, shaking his head, "you're not cold-hearted enough to be a detective. You only want the disagreeable people to be guilty, and I'm afraid you'll find that life isn't like that.

We women have intuition," Barby said loftily. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. I can't imagine why there aren't more women detectives.

Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional -- to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. 'The detective story,' observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, 'is a tragedy with a happy ending.' A storybook detective starts by confronting us with a murder and ends by absolving us of it. He clears us of guilt. He relieves us of uncertainty. He removes us from the presence of death.

There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.

The name's Clem Williamson Snide. I am a private asshole.

The detective story, as created by Poe, is something as specialised and as intellectual as a chess problem, whereas the best English detective fiction has relied less on the beauty of the mathematical problem and much more on the intangible human element. [...] In The Moonstone the mystery is finally solved, not altogether by human ingenuity, but largely by accident. Since Collins, the best heroes of English detective fiction have been, like Sergeant Cuff, fallible.

I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintace. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter nights.

Has anyone ever told you," I said, "that you coalesce reality?""No. They only say that I'm good in the sack.""They are accurate but limited," I said. "And if you give me their names I'll kill them.