Dorothy L. Sayers Quotes

Writing detective stories is about writing light literature, for entertainment. It isn't primarily a question of writing propaganda or classical literature.

I've been in an Agatha Christie called 'The Sittaford Mystery,' which I enjoyed, but 'The Pale Horse' has a real sense of intrigue and the jigsaw pieces fitting together.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

I would love to write a mystery - a romantic, funny mystery.

I read a lot of detective novels.

There are two ways to approach the writing of a mystery novel: adhere to the rules, or break them with glee.

I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.

What would you have if you didn't have a murder in a mystery? You'd have something for the lower-level readers. When you get up into the upper levels, there's nothing that will engage you or compel you or get your emotions churning like a murder. It's the ultimate stakes.

I spent the first twenty years of my writing career preparing for the mystery genre, which is my favorite literary form.

Most detective story readers are an educated audience and know there are only a certain number of plots. The interest lies in what the writer does with them.

I love mysteries, and I read them every night before I go to bed.

My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing, and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak.

Delaying and withholding tactics, red herrings, partial and doubtful outcomes are stock in trade for fiction writers, especially crime writers.

For me the Anita series is built like a mystery series, which means that as much as possible each book stands alone, so you have a mystery to solve from the beginning to the end of the book.

The funny thing is, though I write mysteries, it is the one genre in adult fiction I never read. I read Nancy Drew, of course, when I was a kid, but I think the real appeal is as a writer because I'm drawn to puzzly, complicated plots.

I liked the idea of a whodunit revolving around a marriage.

I'm really into the detective drama genre.

I don't think of myself as a mystery or thriller writer, honestly. I am in awe of mystery writers and don't think I have what it takes to write such a book.

The thriller is the cardinal twentieth-century form. All it, like the twentieth century, wants to know is: Who's Guilty?

The cinema, like the detective story, makes it possible to experience without danger all the excitement, passion and desirousness which must be repressed in a humanitarian ordering of life.

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.

With a thriller, you're going to have your red herrings, as different suspects are thrown up as possible culprits. You can only explore that for so long - if you do that more than a few times, it starts to get a little redundant.

For many years, I read mystery novels for relaxation. But my tastes were too narrow - and, having read all of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, I discovered that the implausibility and the thinness of the people distracted me unduly from the plot.

Crime fiction is a way of satisfying that nosy need to know.

I read all the Agatha Christies when I was younger and like Sherlock Holmes. Crime fiction has always fascinated me, but I'll read anything anyone gives me.