110 Detective Quotes
Following is our list of detective quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about detective stories.
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Famous Detective Quotes
I am an investigator by inclination. I feel a great thirst for knowledge. — Immanuel Kant
Become a creative thinking detective! Ask probing questions. There is no such thing as a wasted question. — Elaine Dundon
It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story. — Agatha Christie
If you judge, investigate. — Seneca The Elder
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. — Arthur Conan Doyle
It is the brain, the little gray cells on which one must rely. One must seek the truth within--not without." ~ Poirot — Agatha Christie
Nothing matters but the facts. Without them, the science of criminal investigation is nothing more than a guessing game. — Blake Edwards
It all comes down to probable cause: If you think something's up, maybe you gotta take a look. — Ron Livingston
Give me a mystery - just a plain and simple one - a mystery which is diffidence and silence, a slim little bare-foot mystery: give me a mystery - just one! — Yevgeny Yevtushenko
My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations. — Louis J. Freeh
We like to see death as an unfair conspiracy, and what we want is a magic practitioner, a combination of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes. — A. A. Gill
I dove on those papers like Sherlock Holmes on a cappuccino binge. — Jordan Sonnenblick
I'm sort of fascinated by the whole espionage crime thing. — Aaron Eckhart
The cops picked me up for attempted murder. I can still see the detectives, licking their chops. Thought they had me. Two weeks later, the cat came out of a coma and told the truth. I was innocent. — Barry White
I've spent the past two years looking for my ex-girlfriend’s killer… but no one will do it. — Anthony Jeselnik
Short Detective Quotes
- Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid — Raymond Chandler
- I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of. — Dashiell Hammett
- I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that. — Matthew McConaughey
- You don't create your mission in life - you detect it. — Viktor E. Frankl
- Only once in a generation does anything as fresh as a vomiting detective come along. — Dean Koontz
- It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check. — Erle Stanley Gardner
- You see, but you do not observe. — Arthur Conan Doyle
- Study the public behavior of top stars and you can detect a keen attentiveness to brand value. — Peter Bart
- It's hard to detect good luck - it looks so much like something you've earned. — Frank A. Clark
- Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture. — Oliver Goldsmith
True Detective Quotes
Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment. — Og Mandino
Detective stories keep alive a view of the world which ought to be true. Of course people read them for fun ... But underneath they feed a hunger for justice ... you offer to divert them, and you show them by stealth the orderly world in which we should all try to be living. — Dorothy L. Sayers
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. — Nic Pizzolatto
It is of course, entirely possible that men (or anyone who is relatively privileged) are most defensive, most obstinate and unseeing when they are worried about losing privileges.... In the reactions of husbands, I detect a haunting worry about what they will lose when true gender equality arrives. — Faye J Crosby
'True Detective' was the last show I got crazy about, with its 'Silence of the Lambs'-style landscape and those strip mall badlands of America. — Irvine Welsh
I never once regretted doing "True Detective". — Colin Farrell
I was disappointed, but I kind of knew it was going to be an uphill struggle because of how strong the first season [of "True Detective"] was. — Colin Farrell
It was the first time I worked with Matthew McConaughey [in the True Detective].They're fun guys [with Woody Harrelson]. They don't take life at all too seriously, but yet they take their work very seriously. And both of them are just so committed to character and the story. — Michelle Monaghan
It was very fortuitous that the show [True Detective] actually spans seventeen years - so as I was getting older on the show, I was gaining weight. When I'm playing fifty, I'm ten pounds heavier! I don't know if they thought maybe I was method? But it actually worked to my benefit. — Michelle Monaghan
I found out a few months after we started [True Detective] that I was pregnant. — Michelle Monaghan
Detective Stories Quotes
We're living in an upside-down era. Regulators detect danger only when a critical mass of citizens has become alarmed. Newsrooms report stories only when the embarrassment of not reporting them becomes unbearable. Universities teach lessons screened by students. It won't end well. — Bret Weinstein
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid. — Arthur Conan Doyle
I made the key discovery for CRISPR there, while living in my scientific monastery in northern Sweden. At the same time, I was very interested in detective stories, searching for enigmas. — Emmanuelle Charpentier
Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight. — Dashiell Hammett
American violence is public life, it's a public way of life, it became a form, a detective story form. So I should think that any number of black writers should go into the detective story form. — Chester Himes
What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order. — P. D. James
Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories. — Jeffery Deaver
The Compleat Angler is acknowledged to be one of the world's books. Only the trouble is that the world doesn't read its books, it borrows a detective story instead. — Stephen Leacock
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. — Sergio Aragones
As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game. — Rex Stout
Detective Work Quotes
I know when I was here prosecuting homicides in the District of Columbia, one of the most effective units here was the cold case squad, which had on it FBI agents, as well as Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives working together. — Robert Mueller
The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected. — Henry David Thoreau
They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains," he remarked with a smile. "It's a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work. — Arthur Conan Doyle
Anything is easy to the man who sees.... The open eye of the open mind--that has more to do with real detective work than all the deduction and induction and analysis ever devised. — Samuel Hopkins Adams
Technology is not a panacea. I refuse to work on technology to track users, analyze usage patterns, watermark information, censor, detect drug use, or eavesdrop. I am not naive enough to think any of those technologies could enable a 'compromise'. — Bram Cohen
You just work really hard and scrutinize. What is it called in politics? "Opposition research"? You want to do the detective work on your client so to speak before your opponent can dig it up. We're vetting everything thoroughly. — James Ponsoldt
When I'm working on a serious and solid book ... I read about a detective novel a day. It's the best legal dope in the world. It makes you feel good until the next morning you can work again. — Mary Lee Settle
Since 2001, the Patriot Act has provided the means to detect and disrupt terrorist threats against the U.S. Prior to enactment of the law, major legal barriers prevented intelligence, national defense, and law enforcement agencies from working together and sharing information. — Roger Wicker
Chuckling to herself, Nancy said aloud, "Romance and detective work won't mix tonight! — Carolyn Keene
So, I got into the law enforcement game. I worked for an outfit called Newton Detective Agency for a while. I worked eight hours on the waterfront making sure the longshoremen didn't take too many things. — Clint Walker
Detective Fiction Quotes
My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky. — Alan Moore
The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective. — Raymond Chandler
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. — Arthur C. Clarke
There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. — S. S. Van Dine
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
I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again. — Joseph Wambaugh
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
The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution. — John Fowles
One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of the mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. — Arthur C. Clarke
People Writing About Detective
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 Agatha Christie |
376 | 2192 |
 Arthur Conan Doyle |
414 | 3321 |
 Immanuel Kant |
314 | 8208 |
 Seneca The Elder |
246 | 2313 |
 Blake Edwards |
9 | 81 |
 Ron Livingston |
28 | 281 |
More Detective Quotes
Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well. — Frantz Fanon
Learning is not virtue but the means to bring us an acquaintance with it. Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. Let these be your motives to action through life, the relief of the distressed, the detection of frauds, the defeat of oppression, and diffusion of happiness. — Nathanael Greene
I can smell bullshit from a mile away but it's so much harder to detect when it's around you all day. — Dane Cook
Breast cancer deaths in America have been declining for more than a decade. Much of that success is due to early detection and better treatments for women. I strongly encourage women to get a mammogram. — Larry Craig
History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done. — Sydney J. Harris
In 'whichever direction' you may turn your gaze you will find One Eternal Indivisible Being manifested. Yet, it is not at all easy to detect this Presence, because He interpenetrates everything. — Anandamayi Ma
If the origin of life is the origin of evolution & nothing comes before life then we are indeed stuck. I don’t think we need to be. Let’s shed the dogma, ego, & closed minds & ask the question clearly. How do we detect the onset of evolution BEFORE biology? — Lee Cronin
The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn't detect. — Mark Twain
Even many of the things that we say we have seen, we’ve actually just seen instruments detect those things. We’re watching the effects through instruments and then theorizing that there are other universes out there where the photons are interacting with the photons that we can see. — Naval Ravikant
As part of our layered approach, we have expedited the deployment of new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) units to help detect concealed metallic and non-metallic threats on passengers. These machines are now in use at airports nationwide, and the vast majority of travelers say they prefer this technology to alternative screening measures. — Janet Napolitano
I have a concept of Naples that is not so much of a city, per se, but rather an ingredient of the human spirit that I detect in everyone, Neapolitan or not. The idea that 'Neapolitanism' and mass ignorance are somehow indissolubly linked is one that I am prepared to fight with all the strength I have. — Luciano De Crescenzo
I find it terrible when talents are rejected based on computer stats. Based on the criteria at Ajax now I would have been rejected. When I was 15, I couldn't kick a ball 15 meters with my left and maybe 20 with my right. My qualities technique and vision, are not detectable by a computer. — Sayings
Other countries, such as Israel, successfully employ behavior detection techniques at their airports, but the bloated, ineffective bureaucracy of TSA has produced another security failure for U.S. transportation systems. — John Mica
Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else's life forever. — Margaret Cho
Character is revealed in the power to discern the suffering of other people when we ourselves are suffering; in the ability to detect the hunger of others when we are hungry; and in the power to reach out and extend compassion for the spiritual agony of others when we are in the midst of our own spiritual distress. — David A. Bednar
A detective with his murder mystery, a chemist seeking the structure of a new compound, use little of the formal and logical modes of reasoning. Through a series of intuitions, surmises, fancies, they stumble upon the right explanation, and have a knack of seizing it when it once comes within reach. — Gilbert N. Lewis
In the simplest array of digits [Ramanujan] detected wonderful properties: congruences, symmetries and relationships which had escaped the notice of even the outstandingly gifted theoreticians. — James R Newman
If evolution almost always occurs by rapid speciation in small, peripheral isolates, then what should the fossil record look like? We are not likely to detect the event of speciation itself. It happens too fast, in too small a group, isolated too far from the ancestral range. — Stephen Jay Gould
Yes. I did more research than I ever wanted to and saw some things I wish I didn't. I went on ride-alongs, spent time with Homicide, Cold Case, and SVU detectives, hung out in subways learning how to spot pervs and pick-pockets, viewed an autopsy, went to a police firing range, and witnessed court cases and I read, read, read. — Mariska Hargitay
I'd like people to know that you can head off kidney disease, maybe prevent a transplant or stop the disease from progressing after detection by doing a simple urine test in the doctor's office. — Sean Elliott
To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others — Samuel Johnson
Better treatment and detection methods have also improved the survival rate for people with cancer, and for the first time in history, this year the absolute number of cancer deaths in the U.S. has decreased. — Ike Skelton
One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie. — David Oyelowo
Everyone needs to be proactive and know the various warning signs of cancer. Early detection and research to make detection easier at earlier stages, along with the treatments needs, is still a must. I salute all those winning the battle. — Dennis Franz
Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this “something” cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It’s what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours. Memory. The census doesn’t count it. Nothing counts without it. — Robert Fulghum
Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools. — Norm MacDonald
Primates are hardwired for us/them dichotomies. Our brains detect them in less than 100 milliseconds. — Robert M. Sapolsky
In the mid-noughties some of these anecdotes, observational studies and marketing claims were finally tested in a number of properly randomised trials that looked at the trendiest antioxidant vitamins, especially carotene, selenium and vitamin E. They detected no benefit whatsoever for heart disease and in fact found a significantly increased cancer and heart failure risk in the groups taking them. — Tim Spector
I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later. — Lord Chesterfield
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