Mystery fiction quotes from the greatest crime novelists ever

Fans of crime fiction will love these mystery fiction quotes from some of the most highly-acclaimed writers, curated by the Pirfly review team.

"Amongst the more churlish criticisms leveled against the art of Murder and Mystery, —in their classic literary forms, I should hasten to say—is the objection, whether philosophical or aesthetic, to the inevitable tidiness of the conclusion, toward which the form instinctively moves: whereby all that has been bewildering, and problematic, and, indeed, ‘mysterious’ is, oft-times not altogether plausibly, resolved: which is to say, explained. It is objected that 'life is not like that'…As if it were not, to all right-thinking persons, a triumphant matter that Evil be exposed in human form, and murderers,—or murderesses—be brought to justice; and the fundamental coherence of the Universe confirmed.” - JOYCE CAROL OATES

"I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution." - JOHN FOWLES

"The detective story itself is in a dilemma. It is a vein which is in danger of being worked out, the demand is constant, the powers of supply variable, and the reader, with each one he absorbs, grows a little more sophisticated and harder to please, while the novelist, after each one he writes, becomes a little more exhausted." - CYRIL CONNOLLY

"If in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns." - RAYMOND CHANDLER

"There really must be a murder, or at least a major felony -- otherwise, what's the point? Who's ripping off the hand towels at the Dorchester Hotel is hardly the business of a mystery novel." - HOWARD HAYCRAFT

"There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better." - S.S. VAN DINE

"The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic." - G.K. CHESTERTON

"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." - STIEG LARSSON

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