Detectives Quotes

You see, but you do not observe.

The detective and his criminal wear versions of the same mask.

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

I have never read horror, nor do I consider The Exorcist to be such, but rather as a suspenseful supernatural detective story, or paranormal police procedural.

Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.

You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.

I was really bummed when I got to the last one of Tony Hillerman Navajo detective books.

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

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.

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

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

To read of a detective's daring finesse or ingenious stratagem is a rare joy.

A really good detective never gets married.

I came to believe that being a private detective was the work I was meant to do.

Women always find you out when you lie. Always. No matter what, they always find out. They're like detectives.

Where there's a will there's a detective story.

With the Great Detective, to think was to act, and to act was to think. Frequently he could do both together.

to keep believing in life, until you're sure of death, it's the way a detective should be." - Kogoro Mouri, Detective Conan

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

The problem is that most people spend their lives looking but not truly seeing, or, as Sherlock Holmes, the meticulous English detective, declared to his partner, Dr. Watson, “You see, but you do not observe.

I know what kind of things I myself have been irritated by in detective stories. They are often about one or two persons, but they don't describe anything in the society outside.

To be a good detective you must also think like a crook, an immoral, unethical or unlawful person

I made True Detective like it was going to be the only thing I ever made for television. So put in everything and the kitchen sink. Everything.

Of course the modern detective story puts off its best tricks till the last, but Doyle always put his best tricks first and that's why they're still the best ones.

Mars and Venus are at it again. This time, Hephaestus is standing by with a private detective, a photographer, and a lawyer.

The criminal is a creative artist; detectives are just critics.

I am a private detective. I am paid to be inquisitive and presumptuous.

A lot of the appeal of internal medicine is Sherlockian—solving the case from the clues. We are detectives; we revel in the process of figuring it all out. It’s what doctors most love to do.

A detective who uses his deductive powers to corner a suspect and then does nothing to stop them from committing suicide is no better than a murderer himself. - Kudo Shinichi

You're right on the money with that. We're all like detectives in life. There's something at the end of the trail that we're all looking for.

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.

Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

I think like a detective.

I think of writers as explorers, not necessarily as detectives. So there is certainly detecting that is going on - they're explorers.

I play a detective, very close to myself actually.

Personally I had the opportunity to go on several ride alongs with the LA County Sheriff's Department with some amazing detectives, who were invaluable to me.

The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.

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

It is dangerous to engage in even the most innocuous-seeming discourse with the FBI/ Homeland Security/ a local detective.

I like the idea of playing a historical detective.

A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.

Let me express how much I don't care on a scale of one to bite me," the former detective said.

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

Read like a detective and write like a conscientious investigative reporter.

It is difficult to distinguish deduction from what in other circumstances is called problem-solving. And concept learning, inference, and reasoning by analogy are all instances of inductive reasoning. (Detectives typically induce, rather than deduce.) None of these things can be done separately from each other, or from anything else. They are pseudo-categories.

the detective's highest talent lay in the gentle art of seeking favours under the guise of conferring them!

I've always noticed that Old Families, like plumbers and barbers and possibly drummers and detectives, seem to have some kind of reciprocity arrangement in the South. Members of the freemasonry could move anywhere ... and still operate cozily in the local Old Family top drawer.

The great thing about the show [ Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency] is that there is so much more to be revealed. There are questions about what each of these characters actually know, and nothing is what it seems.

I included receipts, faxes, newspaper clippings, all sorts of things. I've read novels composed entirely of emails or letters, but not assembled across this kind of mix of materials. I wanted to create the feeling of a detective going through a box of clues.

The Big Sleep' would have been a more effective study of nightmarish existence had the detective been more complicated and had more curiosity been shown about his sweetheart's relation to the crime.