Crime Fiction Quotes

Distance and time and a whitewashed mind hadn’t kept a child from growing, from existing, from demanding a place on this earth.

~ V.s. Kemanis

Rage and despair shook her for minutes or hours. She was unaware of the passage of time. Finally spent, she retreated inward and collapsed onto the floor in a fetal position, the letter in shreds around her. The room had grown dark. Like a gentle snowfall, the cold mantle of an unbearable silence descended.

~ V.s. Kemanis

Her immediate impulse was one of self-preservation. She was tied up in this somehow, she didn’t know why or how, but there was something waiting for her on the other side of this crowd.

~ V.s. Kemanis

For every criminal mastermind, there were ten cretins: the cruel algebra of intelligence applied across the masses.

~ John Nardizzi

Get a load of this, Frank.” Gerald Peyton’s pause set off his pronouncement. “She is expecting to get a wedding ring.”“That’s understandable,” I said, unsure how he could afford a ring on what our firm cleared. Diamond rings—more sold in December than in any other month of the year—went for a cool grand per karat. Weeks ago, I’d priced them—again—for my domestic situation. “What seems to be the problem?”“That’s a big leap for me to make.”“I expect you’ll make it with room to spare.

~ Ed Lynskey

A diamond wedding ring, you say?”I studied his face. Was he putting me on? He looked earnest. “As any guy would expect, a diamond is what she’s after,” I said. “Did you hold out hope you’d get by for anything less?

~ Ed Lynskey

God, I swear I’ve never seen a more nervous bunch of people. Like a bunch of rats in a science lab.

~ Feather Stone

Crime isn't pretty, only fashionably dressed.

~ S.w. Frank

There was a ringing in his ears, like a dead phone line that he couldn’t hang up on.

~ Mark Capell

The laws governed people’s happiness. To be lawless was to be happy.

~ Jess C. Scott

I ought to warn you, dear, he can get rather wild when he’s hungry

~ Wilkie Martin

No sun cream or condoms, just in case you’re looking at the lady-boys. There’s plenty of AIDS lingering about and every STD you can imagine.

~ Simon Palmer

He said when the Lord made people He made them all the same for starters. But life marks people. If you know the way, you can read them like maps.

~ Andrew Vachss