Our favourite quotations about murder and murder mysteries. Feel free to share your own with us in “Comment” below. Bottles of champagne for the best!
“You don’t just spontaneously develop a fatal head wound.”
Detective Vega, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
“Now then, what do we know? One, that Professor Fassbinder and his daughter have been kidnapped. Two, that someone has kidnapped them. Three, that my hand is on fire.”
Peter Sellers, The Pink Panther Strikes Again
“Murder is always a mistake – one should never do anything one cannot talk about after dinner.”
Oscar Wilde
Clouseau: Does your dog bite?
Hotel Clerk: No.
Clouseau: Nice doggie.
(The dog bites Clouseau.)
Clouseau: I thought you said your dog did not bite!
Hotel Clerk: That is not my dog.
Peter Sellers, The Pink Panther Strikes Again
“One must never set up a murder. They must happen unexpectedly, as in life.”
Alfred Hitchcock
(Inspector Clouseau breaks down the door of an apartment)
Clouseau: You are under arrest for ze murder of Pierre Fouquette!
(He realises he is pointing at a dog. He breaks down the door of another apartment)
Clouseau: You are under arrest for ze murder of Pierre Fouquette!
(He realises he is pointing at a baby. He breaks down the door of another apartment)
Clouseau: You are under arrest for ze murder of Pierre Fouquette!
(He realises he is pointing at Pierre Fouquette)
Clouseau: Pierre Fouquette? Ze Case is closed!
Steve Martin, The Pink Panther
“There are 4 kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.”
Ambrose Bierce
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
Voltaire
“I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.”
Agatha Christie
“Aside from the murders, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”
Marion Barry
Dreyfus: What about the maid?
Clouseau: The maid?
Dreyfus: Was he jealous of her too? He strangled her.
Clouseau: It is possible that his intended victim was a man and that he made a mistake.
Dreyfus: Mistake?… in a nudist camp? Idiot nincompoop lunatic!
Peter Sellers, a Shot in the Dark
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Orson Welles, The Third Man
“Truth will come to sight; murder cannot be hid long.”
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain—
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.”
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Policeman: You wish to report a murder.
Frank Taylor: Attempted murder.
Policeman: That’s not so serious.
Frank Taylor: Not when you downgrade it from murder. But when you upgrade it from room service, it’s quite serious.”
Johnny Depp, The Tourist
“You may remember the old Persian saying, ‘There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub’.”
Sherlock Holmes, A Case of Identity
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