Magpie Murders Quotes

“You must know that feeling when it's raining outside and the heating's on and you lose yourself, utterly, in a book. You read and you read and you feel the pages slipping through your fingers until suddenly there are fewer in your right hand than there are in your left and you want to slow down but you still hurtle on towards a conclusion you can hardly bear to discover.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“As far as I'm concerned, you can't beat a good whodunnit: the twists and turns, the clues and the red herrings and then, finally, the satisfaction of having everything explained to you in a way that makes you kick yourself because you hadn't seen it from the start.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“But I’m not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery? And what is it that attracts us? The crime, or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable?”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“I had chosen to play the detective—and if there is one thing that unites all the detectives I've ever read about, it's their inherent loneliness. The suspects know each other. They may well be family or friends. But the detective is always the outsider. He asks the necessary questions but he doesn't actually form a relationship with anyone. He doesn't trust them, and they in turn are afraid of him. It's a relationship based entirely on deception and it's one that, ultimately, goes nowhere. Once the killer has been identified, the detective leaves and is never seen again. In fact, everyone is glad to see the back of him.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“The most obvious conclusions are the ones I try to avoid”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Rumours and malicious gossip are like bindweed. They cannot be cut back, even with the sword of truth. I can, however, offer you this comfort. Given time, they will wither and die of their own volition.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“I held out the packet and suddenly we were friends. That's one of the only good things about being a smoker these days. You're part of a persecuted minority. You bond easily.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“I've watched every episode of Poirot and Midsomer Murders on TV. I never guess the ending and I can't wait for the moment when the detective gathers all the suspects in the room and, like a magician conjuring silk scarves out of the air, makes the whole thing make sense.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“There are some relationships that succeed only because they are impossible, that actually need unhappiness to continue.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“In just about every other book I can think of, we're chasing on the heels of our heroes - the spies, the soldiers, the romantics, the adventurers. But we stand shoulder to shoulder with the detective.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“He used language as a place for us to hide.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“These had been his plans. But if there was one thing that life had taught him, it was the futility of making plans. Life had its own agenda.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Life may imitate art – but it usually falls short of it.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“One can think of the truth as eine vertiefung – a sort of deep valley which may not be visible from a distance but which will come upon you quite suddenly. There are many ways to arrive there.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“In a world full of uncertainties, is it not inherently satisfying to come to the last page with every i dotted and every t crossed?”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Holmes is depressed. Poirot is vain. Miss Marple is brusque and eccentric. They don’t have to be attractive. Look at Nero Wolfe who was so fat that he couldn’t even leave his New York home and had to have a custom-made chair to support his weight!”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“You'd have thought that after twenty years editing murder mysteries I'd have noticed when I found myself in the middle of one.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“But I’m not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Alan invented all sorts of ways of expressing things so that only he and I understood. He used language as a place for us to hide.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“A bottle of wine. A family-sized packet of Nacho Cheese Flavoured Tortilla Chips and a jar of hot salsa dip. A packet of cigarettes on the side (I know, I know). The rain hammering against the windows. And a book. What could have been lovelier?”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“You must know that feeling when it’s raining outside and the heating’s on and you lose yourself, utterly, in a book.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“The house is seventies modern with sliding windows, gas-effect and a giant TV in the living room. There are almost no books. I'm not making any judgement. It's just the sort of thing I can't help but notice.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“In a whodunnit, when a detective hears that Sir Somebody Smith has been stabbed thirty-six times on a train or decapitated, they accept it as a quite natural occurrence. They pack their bags and head off to ask questions, collect clues, ultimately to make an arrest. But I wasn't a detective. I was an editor—and, until a week ago, not a single one of my acquaintances had managed to die in an unusual and violent manner. Apart from my own parents and Alan, I hardly knew anyone who had died at all. It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery and what is it that attracts us—the crime or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable? I made a mental note to check out Alan's sales figures in San Pedro Sula in Honduras (the murder capital of the world). It might be that they didn't read him at all.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Why does anyone take photographs ever? We never look at them anymore.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Inspector Morse, Taggart, Lewis, Foyle’s War, Endeavour, A Touch of Frost, Luther, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Cracker, Broadchurch and even bloody Maigret and Wallander – British TV would disappear into a dot on the screen without murder.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“life had a pattern and that a coincidence was simply the moment when that pattern became briefly visible.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Somehow, she was always there when you needed her. The trouble was, she was also there when you didn’t.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“Whodunnits are all about truth: nothing more nothing less. In a world full of uncertainties, is it not inherently satisfying to come to the last page with every i dotted and every t > crossed? The stories mimic our experience in the world. We are surrounded by tensions and ambiguities, which we spend half our life trying to resolve, and we'll probably be on our own deathbed when we reach that moment when everything makes sense. Just about every whodunnit provides that pleasure. It is the reason for their existence.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

“But he was a man without a shadow -- or perhaps a shadow without a man.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders