Carolyn Wells Quotes

Detective stories are the art-for-art's sake of yawning Philistinism.

I went to get a detective story. You have to kill time. But time will kill me too - and there´s the true, preestablished balance.

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

Murder mysteries are puzzles that are fun to resolve.

But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own.

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.

Anyone who has ever tried to plot a detective mystery knows that the hardest thing to come up with is motive.

Occasionally, I have written about stories related to crime, but I have never attempted a traditional detective story. So I want to write a true detective story.

The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.

I had a publishing history of murder mysteries.

Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention.

I read a lot of detective novels.

Crime fiction is the new rock n' roll.

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.

I love the whole mystery-detective genre - I love all of that.

I've always really liked murder mysteries and thrillers, and great to be able to be actually part of one.

The detective novel is the art-for-art's-sake of our yawning Philistinism, the classic example of a specialized form of art removed from contact with the life it pretends to build on.

The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published. The average -- or only slightly above average -- detective story does.... Whereas the good novel is not at all the same kind of book as the bad novel. It is about entirely different things. But the good detective story and the bad detective story are about exactly the same things, and they are about them in very much the same way.

I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn't have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you're guilty you'll get it in the neck and if you're innocent you can't possibly be harmed. No matter who you are.

Reading my way all the way through Sherlock Holmes gave me a lifelong love for crime and detective fiction.

Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.

Has all the trappings of a mystery novel, doesn't it?

Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.

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

...and then a murder mystery will occur.