Suspense Quotes

I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected to the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn’t have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.

~ Jeannette Walls

No living person could disappear like Sofia. She’d have a go-bag stashed somewhere. Money and passports and disguises, with just enough ice to evaporate.

~ Cindy Skaggs

A quote is a story, suspended in a sentence and treasured through time.

~ Ryan Lilly

He dusted off the shoulder tab and stared at it, so light in his hand, so inconsequential. It was hard to believe that a shred of cloth could have so much destructive power locked away in it.

~ Mark Mills

The heavy rain dripped off his thick leather hat and sloshed on the dry hard ground. To someone with a soul, it might have been peaceful, pretty, even to watch the drops bounce and form graceful puddles before they disappeared into the cracks in the Earth.Daniel Marlin merely cursed. He only saw the weather as another delay before they could rescue their brother from jail. He turned the horse back into the copse of trees, hating to admit defeat.

~ Grace Willows

Don't starve an instinct with a lie on, Never hit or deceive a wounded lion. He heals faster than you can imagine And hurts even more when in famine.

~ Ana Claudia Antunes

Hayden McGregor glanced with contempt at the pitch-black road. “I do not fear the darkness. It fears me.” He dismissed the approaching gloom with a narrowed stare. His steel gray eyes holding it back with a contemptuous regard.

~ Grace Willows

At forty-one, he was still the quintessential bad boy—charming, at ease in his skin, and great-looking, with deep blue eyes, slicked-back brown hair, and the kind of full, sensuous mouth that bad boys seemed to have an unfair market on.

~ Kate White

You just couldn't give it a rest, could you, Sue? Had to keep badgering me. Snooping and poking around. I hope you're satisfied, now that you've ripped my guts out.

~ Wodke Hawkinson

Going for it and changing what you could change-that's what success was all about.

~ Julie Garwood

You ever play that game seven minutes in heaven, baby? Because we're about to play it.

~ Kathey Gray

I really don't know how he does it. How he can take any situation and seduce its pants off. It's a talent really.

~ Kathey Gray

There are only two things you’ll ever need to know about me, Farin—and you should know them well. I’m very smart, and I’m very rich.

~ Heather O'brien

God isn't going to scribble across the sky. The shark is gone.

~ Peter Benchley

Delayed gratification hints that something terrible is going to happen, and then delays the resolution. It’s that interval between the promise of something awful and it actually happening, where suspense resides.

~ Sandy Vaile

Suspense doesn’t always have to be about physical danger. Making the reader worry is a universal concept that can be applied to any story.

~ Sandy Vaile

Life’s unpredictable patterns had a strange way of forming a connected web.

~ D.a. Pupa

I am the prosecutor. I represent the state. I am here to present to you the evidence of a crime. Together you will weigh this evidence. You will deliberate upon it. You will decide if it proves the defendant's guilt.

~ Scott Turow

I will not be a victim. I will not think like a victim. I am going to avenge all those little girls. I am going to win.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

I don't know how the Wolfman knows all this, but he's not wrong. My warm cheeks turn scalding hot. Your shame is a good sign. You may break sooner than I thought. The breaking is good. It purifies.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

When he unleashes on her everything falls together. Like a crick in the neck snapped into place, the boy's brain pops and is put right. It is a beautiful undoing, a beautiful becoming. He doesn't stop to think about it when the punches follow her down to the ground. He doesn't stop to notice when she goes still or when the pool of blood under her head pillows out into a great, liquid heart. He doesn't stop until he's pulled off her and he doesn't start to think again until that night, when he's back at home. For hours and hours his brain stays beautifully popped into place.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

Wolfman clears everything off the table except his gun. That he keeps close at hand. There is a sense of ceremony about his actions. My stomach tightens up. We are about to begin.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

I know you, Ruth Ann Carver. I know you better than you know yourself. You think you do things right. You think you're a paragon of right living. This is a self-told lie, one bolstered by your coddling parents and grandparents.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

He looks up and up and up to get to her face. His mama's a tall lady, and he's only seven. He's overwhelmed by red. Red heels, red nails, red lips, red hair, red eyes. So help him, the boy has always thought his mama's copper-colored eyes damn near shined red. He looks into those eyes and knows she's come home funny.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

It was like a commercial for laundry detergent or tampons or a prescription medication with death listed as a possible side effect.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

No one in Cattaraugus had much idea of what an artist’ colony might be. “Art” itself was viewed with suspicion, scorn. There was the sense, as people like my mother conveyed it, of a fraud, a hustle. “Art” was putting something over on someone, the way politicians did. “Art” was a sorry excuse for not being productive, useful. “Art” was vanity, pretension.

~ Lauren Kelly

I shut up. I don't fight, I don't scream. Shame rides alongside my terror. But somewhere deep, deep inside, I hear Mom tell me to trust my gut. My gut tells me I am blind and I am lost, and if I fought for freedom now, it would end in my death. I listen to my gut. Because I want to live.

~ Carolyn Lee Adams

Sometimes surviving is all you can do

~ Emilee King

Find my weak points, but more importantly, find yours.

~ Gutteridge Rene

Grandpa Sereno: There is nothing as dangerous as fear, fear of people who are different than you. Fear is the REAL danger and we must start to put all our efforts into fighting THAT instead of each other. Fight fear not people!!! Let there be light!

~ Sipporah Joseph

Shimmel: “NEVER TRUST THE GOYIM. They are just like these other weird dangerous people, Messianic Jews! How dare Jews become “Christian-like”, Messianic? We should cherem (ban) them from every aspect of Jewish life. And we must strip them of every Jewish privilege!

~ Sipporah Joseph

Sarucha (age 8): Look, down there, I recognize it, ciudad de Jerusalén (the city of Jerusalem)! Jerusalén!, Jerusalén! she exclaimed.

~ Sipporah Joseph

Light has a voice?” Sarucha inquired, amazed.

~ Sipporah Joseph

Unintended jealousy is merciless.

~ Doctor Kesi

My motto? Don’t trust someone who is just as cagey as yourself. What kind of detective are you?” “A lousy one and proud of it. I write, remember?” She looked down at her hand & laughed. “Berretta doesn’t make lighters.” Why I was a writer! My life revolved around fiction. I could make something upShe looked down at her hand & laughed. “Berretta doesn’t make lighters.” So they're not Tolstoy, they're a little shorter...Okay, okay a lot. Go ahead, read my mystery series anyway. A detective has their boundaries especially me. So mine shifted occasionally...okay a lot “Beat it, Buster. My temper and this mace have a hair trigger.”“Interference could be lethal.” I got right up in his face, hissing, “Don’t push me, I’m hormonal.”I'm not really a lousy detective, just rough around the edges.

~ Peggy A. Edelheit

We all have scars. Just because mine are hidden doesn’t make them any less painful.

~ Nicki Salcedo

Kate stops grinding the knife and begins to pass it over the length of the stone. Turning her wrist, she pulls the blade, swiping one side after the other, honing it to a fine edge. She wipes it dry with an old cloth and picks up a long piece of dark leather. One end of the strop she ties to the knob on the back of her chair, then holds it taught with her left hand. She counts in her head as she passes the blade over the length of the leather, flipping it at the bottom and the top of each pass. When she gets to twenty, she releases her hold on the strop and looks closely at the knife blade. Even in the dim light of the room, it shines.

~ Kari Aguila

As he drove away from his handiwork, knowing he'd left no survivors, the killer looked at the rising smoke and gave himself a pat on the back for another assignment well done...

~ Peprah Boasiako

Placing his suitcase on the seat next to him, he unbuttoned his suit jacket, loosened up his necktie and removed his fedora. He kept his custom eye wear on and made himself comfortable, looking more like a Wall Street accountant than the cold killer he'd become...

~ Peprah Boasiako

Limp finally spoke. “Do you think you could kill a person and not get all crazy about it?

~ Cole Alpaugh