c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
A mystery is so much more exciting than a wrapped up answer, wouldn’t you say? A mystery carries on but an answer just ends.
— Jonathan Renshaw, Dawn of Wonder
Water is intrinsically linked to the mystery and excitement of discovering new worlds.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
Simple spells were light and fun, like a good joke. This spell was as simple as a symphony and as splendid. After adding the last runes, I swirled power through the old spells ensuring they merged with the new spells. The entire castle of spells flexed with the added power, my sign to retreat and hope it worked. Watching the spells bend and move was captivating. One moment they were crawling over each other looking for structure and the next they'd formed a fortress of magic seeking targets, calling them home...."Jones?""Right behind you." He walked around to my left. "How'd it go?""Good. Really good.""I can tell. You're glowing."I thought he was joking until I glanced at my hand. I had to look like a giant firefly. "Narselfart!" He laughed. "Don't worry about it. It's kinda' cute. Besides, those boys" - he jerked his head to indicate the younger cops - "aren't ever going to forget this power show.
— N. E. Conneely, Witch for Hire
Monday nights always brought in the worst kind of crazy. Tonight that crazy came in the form of Paul Cross, town hermit. One of them, anyway. This was the Pacific Northwest.
— Tara Kelly, The Foxglove Killings
As a child I would play with such imagination that the ‘real’ world was never real at all. It was full of mystery, adventure and possibility.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
Michelle: The dreaded elf walked into the dining room seconds after I sat down. What business of his was it if I didn't have a clan? It wasn't often I regretted my upbringing but being questioned about a clan stirred unhappy feelings. I'm a witch, but a witch without a clan. Mom had been expelled from her clan before I was born because she wouldn't say who my father was. The clan elders ruled that he must have been human. Unfortunately for my mom, she wasn't much of a witch and breeding with a human was against clan law. I'm not sure who my dad was, but he wasn't around. I've always thought he was from a clan hers didn't favor because I sure had magic and lots of it.
— N. E. Conneely, Witch for Hire
Combine two words, Myth and History. What do you get? Mystery.
— Ashwin Sanghi
It takes it out of you, writing with heart. And it was just for me really. Sort of a confirmation to myself that my inner diva can still make love to the keyboard when she’s in the mood. I have to keep her roped and gagged when I’m writing for the newspapers. They don’t like her at all. They don’t want love. They want a quick tryst in a motel room that’s forgotten in a few hours.
— Colin Cotterill
Often I have found myself gazing up at clouds – yesterday’s seas and tomorrow’s streams – to think of them as floating on an ultraviolet sea, beyond which is the infinity of space that presents so much wonder and so many questions.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
Having a fishing rod in your hand is merely an excuse to explore out-of-sight depths and reveal mysteries that previously only existed in dreams.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
It’s the wonderment of water that makes it so appealing: thoughts of what’s beneath the surface, or out there beyond a watery horizon.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
I like to let ideas simmer in my brain until they're well done.
— Silvia Villalobos, Stranger or Friend
Some friend of yours, perhaps?""Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage visitors.
— Arthur Conan Doyle
What would she know about God anyway? The personification of her God, Holmes figured, was surely the popular one: a wrinkled old man sitting omnisciently upon a throne of gold, reigning over creation from within puffy clouds, speaking both graciously and commandingly at the same instant. Her God, no doubt, wore a flowing beard. For Holmes, it was amusing to think that Mrs. Munro's Creator probably looked somewhat like himself- except her God existed as a figment of imagination, and he did not (at least not entirely, he reasoned).
— Mitch Cullin
The spell started to brush across my skin, tasting me, telling me what it wanted....Nothing compared to power flowing through you, over you, around you. It was a alluring, sensual as it wound through my hair, cuddled with my skin. It wanted me to swirl the power, to tickle it with light and sound, and it sang to me of spells long lost.
— N. E. Conneely, Witch for Hire
In the ten houses the police had scouted, I hadn't sensed anything more dangerous than a pot that prevents over-boiling.
— N. E. Conneely, Witch for Hire
Elizabeth sank into the leather wing chair in the library of her mind and began to read.
— L.J.M. Owen, Olmec Obituary
It is a sad state of affairs that I donot know of any astronomer who fully understands the energy in their own daily environment. Untilthat changes, Dark Energy will always be a mystery to the astronomical community.
— Steven Magee
But now we live in a time and in a culture when mystery tends to mean something more answerable, it means a crime novel, a thriller, a drama on TV, usually one where we'll find out - and where the whole point of reading it or watching it will be that we will find out - what happened.
— Ali Smith
Nothing doing. I've no doubt you think I should look noble as a sacrifice. But I've never wanted to look noble, and I won't be made to. -- Neville Fletcher
— Georgette Heyer, A Blunt Instrument
Don't worry. Chivalry has practically no appeal for me whatsoever. -- Neville Fletcher
— Georgette Heyer, A Blunt Instrument
Do you get a percentage for every soul you corrupt or is this just how you get your kicks?” I enquired.“Take it as a compliment. I only try to corrupt people I like.
— Jane Cousins, One For The Wedding
I would appreciate it if they would call a halt on all their devoted efforts to find a way to abolish war or eliminate disease or run trains with atoms or extend the span of the human life to a couple of centuries, and everybody concentrate for a while on how to wake me up in the morning without my resenting it.
— Rex Stout
...every life is like a snowflake: individual existences might look identical from afar, but to understand one´s own eternally mysterious uniqueness one had only to plot the mysteries of one´s own snowflake.
— Orhan Pamuk, Snow
Will there be cheese?" asked Chisolm.
— Nancy T. Lucas, A Ghostly Tail
I’m after a mugger,” said Scout.“A hugger?” said Clyde. He was a little deaf. “I would imagine you receive plenty of hugs. They probably come to you. Why would you have to go after them?”“NO!” said Ike. “MMMMugger, you nitwit.” He made m-m-m-m noises with his lips.
— Nancy T. Lucas, The Missing Boston Terriers of Smith Street
From Chapter 11 "Rainy Day Puppy" ("The Missing Tulip Bulbs"): The next few days were hard on the family. It rained. It was cold. Winter had returned. The puppy grew and gained energy equal to a neutron bomb. He bounced and chewed and barked.Everyone was exhausted, except for the puppy. -
— Nancy T. Lucas, The Missing Tulip Bulbs: A Springer Spaniel Mystery
Happiness is a mystery in the minds of many because they keep expecting to attain it from experiences that create pleasures.
Maybe life isn't for everyone,Sometimes you do things to start anew life.But the new paths will always bring you back to the old ones or just show a glimpse of it so that you again go through those thousand memories.and no matter how much you try to get rid of the old shoe, Life will bring you to a certain point where you would want to throw off the new shoe and wear the old one back again..and Maybe, maybe you would or maybe you would not.For who knows, We re mysterious beings in these mysterious world trying to figure out our existence.
— Alamvusha
The people through which the Tradition of the Sun spoke were people just like anyone else, and who, one morning or one evening, looked at the world and felt the presence of something greater. They had unwittingly plunged into an unknown sea, and, for the most part, they did not do so again. Everyone, at least once in each incarnation, possessed the secret of the Universe.
— Paulo Coelho, Brida
what are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we ddone to each other? What will we do?
— Gillian Flynn
The tale of a righteous leftist - THE BRAND DEMAND
— Johnny Worthen, The Brand Demand
Spooky things, people, places, scents and sounds together or alone can create a powerful adrenalin rush and it floods the senses.
— StorySmitten
Buddy ran down the road, turned into another street, and vanished as if he had never been there, like another ghost from New Orleans's past.
— Hunter Murphy, Imogene in New Orleans
Madness is loving the unsolvable puzzle of your soul and replacing the lost pieces with my own.
— Shannon L. Alder
Jackson watched in amazement that she had convinced the driver to handle the vehicle in such a way. Tourists began taking pictures of Imogene, standing tall in the seat while the driver guided the horse with the reins. She kept her eye trained on Catfish, describing his every step as if the driver couldn’t see the runner for himself … Catfish stopped at the “T” in the road up ahead. He was heaving air, and Imogene said, “We’ve worn him out, son. Keep on him. He’s ours for the catchin’.
— Hunter Murphy, Imogene in New Orleans
It's goddamned funny in this police racket how an old woman can look out of a window and see a guy running and pick him out of a line-up six months later, but we can show hotel help a clear photo and they just can't be sure.''That's one of the qualifications for good hotel help,' I said.
— Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
Sometimes people do misguided things for the most honorable of reasons.
— Tamara Hughes, Once Upon a Masquerade
You are an exceedingly beautiful mystery, one that intrigues me and one that I plan to solve.
— Tamara Hughes, Once Upon a Masquerade
Lucy in the sky. Without her I am the walrus, likely to lose myself in dark gibberish and fade away.” Lance Underphal, Cut-Throat Syndrome.
— Michael Allan Scott
It is another unsolved mystery in a world full of unsolved mysteries.Now stand up and walk out the way you came, and the moment that fresh air caresses your face, you will realize that that is what makes the world so beautiful. All those unsolved mysteries. And you won't ever want to interfere with that beauty again.
— Matt Haig, The Radleys
A lot of people don't believe in themselves due to their strong negative beliefs. So when they start to see some of the people around them succeeding in life, they become extremely jealous and bitter. This is because they have programmed their subconscious minds to perceive success as a permanent mystery in their lives. But little do they know that the future outcomes of their lives depend on their frequent interpretations of their abilities.
He had an overwhelming urge to take possession of her lips, silencing any mention of another man’s name.
— Tamara Hughes, Once Upon a Masquerade
So much for the bimbo alert; if she read books like that, then there was a light on upstairs, above the splendid front porch.
— C.I. Dennis, Tanzi's Heat
She came through the door the moment my beer arrived. Fortyish, salon-blonde, spray tan, fake boobs and real diamonds. Anywhere else it would be a bimbo alert, but in Florida it was just protective coloration.
— C.I. Dennis, Tanzi's Heat
Quote taken from Chapter 1:"Alma idly wondered if he'd blow his nose, too.He did. Twice. He made it honk, the sound reminding Alma of Harpo Marx squeezing his bulb horn.Isabel darted a look at Alma, giving her the don’t-you-dare-giggle squint.Alma dug her fingernails into her palm, the inappropriate laugh rising from her throat as she looked up at the ceiling. Blue refolded his handkerchief and returned it to inside his seersucker jacket. Thankfully, Alma’s urge to laugh subsided.
— Ed Lynskey, The Amber Top Hat
I'd spent my whole career dealing with badasses taking care of my nine-month-old boy should be a lark.
— C.I. Dennis, Tanzi's Game
If all goes well, we will be back in time for a proper memorial service [for your father], Ben. I promise."Ben looked up, and all the bitterness was gone from his eyes, replaced somehow by both resignation and determination."And if all doesn't go well?" he asked, tightening his grip on Coralee's trusting hand as he led her outside to the driveway.Kira's flawless features morphed into something like a smile, yet wholly without happiness or humor."Then you'll all be meeting up with [your father] soon enough, I expect. Either that, or you shall wish it was so.
— Caitlin Rush, Curses Beneath Her Feet
Covert operations relied on the unguarded slip, the unconscious choosing of one word over another.
— Sara Sheridan, British Bulldog
Rosy’s mummy hands Franny a clear plastic bag full of reject biscuits, then Rosy holds her cheek out for Franny’s wet kiss. Rosy wipes the slime from her face and Franny cackles, then shows them both into the lounge.There on Franny’s coffee table is a biscuit tin with a Christmas picture on the lid. Proper shop-bought biscuits, not factory rejects.“Please, may I have a biscuit?” Rosy says.“Oh, there are no biscuits in that my darling,” Franny says, and pulls the tin from Rosy’s prying fingers. Franny holds open the bag of crumb-speckled chocolate digestives. “Help yourself, my wee hen.”Rosy settles for a reject.Franny puts the Christmas tin up high, way up high, way out of reach.
— R.G. Manse, Screw Friendship
Rosy waited as long as she dared then sat forward and let her eye rove Franny’s lounge, up and down the shelves, looking for something, not even sure she could bring herself to act if she saw it again, already convinced this was her worst ever idea
— R.G. Manse, Screw Friendship
She loves mysteries so much, she became one.
— John Green, Paper Towns
The good thing about the aristocracy – German or English – was that they were easily traced, Mirabelle thought.
— Sara Sheridan, British Bulldog
This investigation felt difficult, like driving in fog. 
— Sara Sheridan, British Bulldog
Soon he would be able to touch her, to feel the warmth of her blood. When the time came, nothing would stop him.
— Caroline Mitchell, Don't Turn Around
If I was in deep shit with Lilian before, I was snorkeling at the waste treatment plant now.
— C.I. Dennis, Tanzi's Heat
No wonder Thanksgiving was my favorite—you can't buy it, wrap it, or put it under a tree, and even the greeting card companies can't seem to make a buck off of it. It's just a meal, with people who you love and who love you back, no matter what.
— C.I. Dennis, Tanzi's Ice
Mirabelle was always an enigma, and he had the sense that if he pushed her, she’d bolt.
— Sara Sheridan, British Bulldog
mysterious like the moon, she would delight you in her glow, her light alone can make you question yourself..  &  who was she?  She will never let you know.
— Nikki Rowe
It was said by Epicurus, and he was probably right, that all philosophy takes its origin from philosophical wonder. The man who has never at any time felt consciously struck by the extreme strangeness and oddity of the situation in which we are involved, we know not how, is a man with no affinity for philosophy - and has, by the way, little cause to worry. The unphilosophical and philosophical attitudes can be very sharply distinguished (with scarcely any intermediate forms) by the fact that the first accepts everything that happens as regards its general form, and finds occasion for surprise only in that special content by which something that happens here today differs from what happened there yesterday; whereas for the second, it is precisely the common features of all experience, such as characterise everything we encounter, which are the primary and most profound occasion for astonishment; indeed, one might almost say that it is the fact that anything is experienced and encounter at all.
— Erwin Schrödinger, My View of the World
Do it once and do it right and do it quickly
— Lee Child, Killing Floor
Mystical experience needs some form of dogma in order not to dissipate into moments of spiritual intensity that are merely personal, and dogma needs regular infusions of unknowingness to keep from calcifying into the predictable, pontificating, and anti-intellectual services so common in mainstream American churches. So what does all this mean practically? It means that congregations must be conscious of the persistent and ineradicable loneliness that makes a person seek communion, with other people and with God, in the first place. It means that conservative churches that are infused with the bouncy brand of American optimism one finds in sales pitches are selling shit. It means that liberal churches that go months without mentioning the name of Jesus, much less the dying Christ, have no more spiritual purpose or significance than a local union hall. It means that we -- those of us who call ourselves Christians -- need a revolution in the way we worship. This could mean many different things -- poetry as liturgy, focused and extended silences, learning from other religious traditions and rituals (this seems crucial), incorporating apophatic language. But one thing it means for sure: we must be conscious of language as language, must call into question every word we use until we refine or remake a language that is fit for our particular religious doubts and despairs -- and of course (and most of all!) our joys.
— Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer
What's the best place to hide a car? In an airport long-term lot. Like where's the best place to hide a grain of sand? On the beach
— Lee Child, Killing Floor
Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all.
— Seneca
If anyone views himself as being totally perfect in the actual sense of the word, he is undoubtedly imperfect in God's eyes. For the thought alone is one of presumption, impurity and imperfection. One may rightly strive for perfection pertaining to character and spirit, but must bear in mind that he will never reach its purest form within this human body. The fact that he has strived for it until the end has made him 'perfect' in the eyes of God.﻿
— Tanya R. Taylor
A wise man does not always admit to everything he knows. And sometimes an overly-credulous friend can be a source of mild amusement.”~Sherlock Holmes
— Stephanie Osborn, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival
...because wonder admits to the existence of mystery, and the recognition of mystery in the world allows the possibility of Truth.
— Dean Koontz, Odd Hours
Neely McIntire," I said, clamping a sweaty hand behind her neck. "Friendship be damned!"	Hayden yanked me forward. I had time to make a very girly sound before his lips began to move furiously over mine. His touch left behind the tingle of cinnamon gum. One of his hands slowly slid down and pressed into the small of my back. For a second, I thought the sun had washed over me. But this heat cuddled around me, pushing its way through my clothes.	"Stmmmmp," I tried to say around his lips.	My knees wobbled as he wound his fingers into the curls at my neck, holding my face firmly against his.	"No." The hot pressure of his hand increased. A rumbling protest came from his throat when I dug my nails into his collarbones.	"Lemme go," I managed to gasp when he kissed the corner of my mouth.	"No," he whispered. His voice became a yielding puff of smoke. It slipped into my ears and coaxed something familiar from the broken depths.	The urge to fight drained away. This wisp of memory warmed me, relaxed tensed muscles, but tightened other places.	My fists uncurled and gripped his shoulders. "Why are you doing this?"	"I want you to come back to me, Neely," he said, wrapping his arms around my waist to press our hips together. Fiery lips caressed my face and neck. "I know you're in there somewhere. Come back, come back, come back," he whispered between kisses.
— K.D. Wood, Unwilling
Do you know why the lotus is one of my favorite flowers?" I cocked my head to one side so I could see his expression.	He shook his head.	"This beautiful flower lives in the most vile, muddy water of swamps and bogs," I said and rubbed the smooth metal of the pendant between my fingers.	He frowned.	"No, seriously... the grosser the environment, the better," I said.	"So let me get this straight. You like a flower that lives in disgusting places?" One of his eyebrows rose. "That ain't right."	"No, I love this flower," I corrected.	He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, "Seriously?"	"What?" You don't believe me?"	"Sure, I believe you. It's just weird."	"I'll tell you why, but only if you promise not to laugh," I said.	He nodded.	Taking a cleansing breath, I rested my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and took that scary first step.	"This flower stays in the mud and muck all night long."	I peeked at him without moving my head. His face had become set in the smooth lines of one who listens intently.	"Then, at sunrise, it climbs toward the light and opens into a pristine bloom. After the sun goes down, the bloom sinks into the mire. Even though it spends the whole night underwater, the flower emerges every morning as beautiful as the day before." Smiling, I swiveled in my seat to face him. "I love this flower because it reminds me that we get second chances every day, no matter what muck life drags us through.
— K.D. Wood, Unwilling
Sometimes you gotta say what's in your heart... And you have to stand for what you believe. No matter what." ~'Dr. Michael C. Anders,
— Stephanie Osborn, Burnout: The Mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281
I believe the Lord has chosen me to spread His word through my words and who am I to question His plans for me?
— Cindy Bauer, The Memory Box
If it's any consolation, Princess, I think he's a supercilious, salacious sap.""You've been reading the dictionary!""My only hope of comprehending your conversation, my petite sesquipedalian.
— Lynn Gardener
Did somebody die?”“Yes,” I replied.“Who?” he asked, starting to freak out. I pulled out my notepad and asked him if he knew a Marcie Tucker. “Marcie? Hm, Marcie, it doesn't ring a bell but… Oh yeah, the temp who's filling in while my regular assistant is out, I think her name is Marcie. In fact, she was supposed to be here today. I was actually starting to worry that… Wait. Is she…”“Unfortunately yes,” I said, “Marcie was found in her apartment late last night uh… no longer alive.” My bedside manner has never been my strong suit.Dr. Taggart looked distressed and began to ramble incoherently for a minute. I let him work through it though, I figured it was his way of grieving. I wouldn't have even paid attention to it except for the fact that it was kind of goofily, ineptly… well, poignant:"Oh, uh, Oh my God. That's terrible. I uh… I hope she didn't have any family. I mean, I don't hope she didn't have any family, what I mean is, if she uh… if she didn't have any family then there would be nobody to get all bummed out about this and uh… you know, when something like this happens, you always think about the poor, heartbroken family, so uh… if she doesn't have any family then uh… the bright side would be that nobody would, you know, have to be all bummed out."Hm. I guess I never thought of it that way. Awkward wording aside, he's kind of got a point there.
— Jules Cassard, Dirt Nap Rhapsody
Come in." The kid turned and walked toward the house. "I'll help you if I can." He paused, his brown eyes turned toward Stacy who now stood open-mouthed. "But you'll have to do something for me in return."	I frowned. "Like what?"	"Hide me from my mother," he said. His eyes were shiny with fresh tears.	I snorted. "Do you mean your mother, the beauty queen?"	"No," he said softly. His face suddenly seemed older. "I mean my mother, the monster.
— K.D. Wood, Unwilling
Well, sir to say that when the impossible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth, is to make the assumption, usually justified, that everything that is to be considered has indeed been considered. Let us suppose we have considered ten factors. Nine are clearly impossible. Is the tenth, however improbable, therefore true? What if there were an eleventh factor, and a twelfth, & a thirteenth...
— Isaac Asimov
God puzzled her and she was too ashamed of Him to say so.
— Toni Morrison, Beloved
Well, it is generally considered— though not always true— that the wife of a man so honoured is likely also to be worthy of the honour, and so it is accorded her. In the event it is false, and I have known that to be so in more than one circumstance , it is still accorded her in deference to her husband."~Sherlock Holmes, with respect to aristocratic titles
— Stephanie Osborn, The Case of the Cosmological Killer: The Rendlesham Incident
Watson fully comprehended the fact that occasionally it is useful for one’s adversaries to underestimate one’s abilities.”~Sherlock Holmes
— Stephanie Osborn, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival
I am looking forward to fully understanding what is occurring. Other than the fact that we are well over a century in my future—if it is MY future; in America, in an underground government facility of some sort near the Colorado Rocky Mountains, specifically Pikes Peak, so I assume the nearest city of any import to be Colorado Springs…I am afraid I have little grasp of your project.”~Sherlock Holmes
— Stephanie Osborn, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival
Suddenly the images in the center of the room became more than images. They solidified.
— Stephanie Osborn, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival
Death lurked everywhere. Death was alive and well.
— Eric Rickstad, The Silent Girls
That’s our cue,” Dr. Chadwick noted, managing to approximate a cheerful smile, addressing the room at large. “Everyone please stand behind the yellow line until the doors open. No food, drink, flash photography, or video cameras are permitted. Once aboard the ride, please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times until we come to a full and complete stop. Otherwise, they’re apt to end up in another universe somewhere without ya, and wouldn’t that fry your noggin?
— Stephanie Osborn, The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival
Oh my God," Mrs. McIntire screamed. She'd dropped to her knees, the dark sand and water soaking into her jeans. "Neely!"	Mr. McIntire held his wife while she screeched her daughter's name over and over. "She's going to be fine, sweetie," he kept saying.	I really wanted to believe him.	"Is she on the other side?" I paced the shore. I couldn't see anything except a piece of driftwood lying at the water's edge. "I don't see her."	Mr. McIntire didn't answer, only pointed across the rolling water.	A log had washed up on the shore. It looked like maybe the water had rubbed all the bark off and left a naked, saturated trunk behind.	"Tell me where she is." Aggravated, I stared until my eyes blurred with stress. "All I see is a damn log."	"Son," Sheriff Mills said from behind me. "That ain't a log.
— K.D. Wood, Unwilling
When you find the sort of people who will show up to give you a ride exactly when they've promised to do so, hold on to them for dear life.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
The trouble with being patient is that eventually you get tired of it.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
There's no way to tell what will make someone break down in tears. There are some who will cry at the merest melancholy word, and there are some who need the longest, cruelest speech to even dampen one eyelash. There are those who will cry at any sad song but no sad book, and there are those who are immune to the most saddening newspaper articles but will weep for days over a terrible meal. People cry at silence or at violence, in a graveyard or a schoolyard.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
If you're not scared, she told me, it's not bravery.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
It is unwise to make something permanent when the whole world is shifting.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
But some secrets are so strange and so dangerous that showing them to people makes the strangeness and the danger pour into their lives like a dark, dark ink.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
People who think nothing could go wrong are usually disappointed.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
The demon is crouched in the corner, between the Cheetos and the onion dip. It’s a small one, only about four feet tall: a low-level creeper. I flick my gaze over the spot like I don’t see it and open the cooler door to get a Coke.
— Rachel A. Marks, Darkness Brutal
The right things often happen for the wrong reason.
— Alex Adam, Deep Disparity
There are some things you cannot explain to anyone, even whey they have been explained to you, over and over, almost since the day you were born.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
Are you saying that being a criminal is a matter of opinion?" I asked.Qwerty smiled, but it was sad around the edges. "No," he said. "It's a matter of handcuffs.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
Like an abandoned dog who cannot finda smell or a track and roamsalong the roads, with no road, likethe child who in a night of the fairgets lost among the crowd,and the air is dusty, and the candlesfluttering,--astounded, his heartweighed down by music and by pain;that’s how I am, drunk, sad by nature,a mad and lunar guitarist, a poet,and an ordinary man lost in dreams,searching constantly for God among the mists.
— Antonio Machado, Times Alone: Selected Poems
When you turn a blind eye to atrocities, you are complicit in them.
— David Crossman, A Terrible Mercy: 11/17/2014
When you give in to bullies, you don't just empower them, you encourage whatever methods they employ to achieve their ends; usually terror and violence. Meaning it's the innocent who pay; mourners at a funeral in Baghdad, a group of Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya, a group of defenseless school children in Pakistan. When we turn a blind eye to atrocities, we are complicit in them.
— David Crossman
It was another thing you didn't learn at a top-drawer school. Bickering is like baldness or lousy gifts. It runs in families.
— Lemony Snicket, Shouldn't You Be in School?
I, myself, love complications and mystery which I didn't notice that I had become one.
— Keziah Ruth D. Lingco
The best method for getting away with something outrageous is to do it right in front of people, and then tell them they’re not seeing what they think they’re seeing.
— Wodke Hawkinson, Dark Longings
When the sun shines you cannot see the moon," he said. "But when the sun is gone ah,when the sun is gone.
— Agatha Christie
When your ship comes in, don't be in the bathroom with your pants around your ankles." quoted by Frank McNichols, father of Rose McNichols in A Nose for Hanky Panky, a Granite Cove Mystery
— Sharon Love Cook, A Nose for Hanky Panky
That evening we sat in the courtyard of the hotel once more, watching the sun sink below the western isles. I told Alexi what had happened that day. I fancied I could glimpse the grey stone wall of Lismore House on its island hilltop, the red light of the setting sun glinting from the windows, and from there the wasted frame of Jonathan Blake gazing out across the sea, on nothing, his boy waiting for him to die. But it was my fantasy, simply the image on my mind, like the image burned on to your eyes when you have stared too long at the sun, the passing footprint of a creature long gone.
— P.B. North, LEAVING PIMLICO
One morning, as he sat at his desk, he heard the sound of a horse's hooves on the path outside his house. He stepped out on to the verandah. There, on a tall grey horse, sat Morgane. 'I've come to have my picture painted,' she said. She took off her hat and her long black hair cascaded below her shoulders. 'You said you would,' she added, before dismounting. She wore a pair of moleskin jodhpurs and a white shirt, open at the neck. Her skin was radiant from the African sun.
— P.B. North, GIRL IN THE PICTURE
I know you. Perversity is your aphrodisiac.
— Wodke Hawkinson, Dark Longings
Well, it’s an anomaly! He must have received the wrong dosage. That’s what happens when you put these matters in the hands of morons.
— Wodke Hawkinson, Dark Longings
i wonder if he is seeking me; as i am seeking him. I dont know what he looks like; but i know one thing for sure, the moment i feel his soul, my entire world will change.
— Nikki Rowe
Those without color—say, dressed in all black—can go about almost unnoticed. Where the rainbow is conspicuous, their darkness acts as a kind of camouflage, masculine by contrast, and allows them to watch without being watched. It’s the choice of someone who needs not to attract. Someone self-sufficient. Someone more distant, less knowable, and ultimately, mysterious. Powerful.
— Sam Wasson, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman
Every man who begets a free act projects his personality into the infinite. If he gives a poor man a penny grudgingly, that penny pierces the poor man’s hand, falls, pierces the earth, bores holes in suns, crosses the firmament and compromises the universe. If he begets an impure act, he perhaps darkens thousands of hearts whom he does not know, who are mysteriously linked to him, and who need this man to be pure as a traveler dying of thirst needs the Gospel’s draught of water. A charitable act, an impulse of real pity sings for him the divine praises, from the time of Adam to the end of the ages; it cures the sick, consoles those in despair, calms storms, ransoms prisoners, converts the infidel and protects mankind
— Léon Bloy, Pilgrim of the Absolute
What a disgrace! They were afraid...ashamed...they chose to conceal it...they buried the roots of a Great Civilization...they lacked the courage to go further...and turned their backs on what science had to offer them...and tried to seal away forever the hole they had torn open with their own hands.
— Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira, Vol. 1
You don't die of a broken heart, it only wears you down—just another rainy day.” – Grey Daze
— Michael Allan Scott
After only a few moments in her presence, he found himself wondering what dragon he might slay for her.
— Regina Scott, The Rogue's Reform
Write or perish in the banality of mediocrity!
— Thomas K. Matthews
Only the trees, only the trees. Like a key they see beyond the mystery, waiting patiently ever holding me while I hold the sky.
— Stasia Bliss, Blissful Musings: A Lyrical, Cosmic Dance of Embrace
It was the fear of good things happening, because they, sooner or later, would lead to something bad.
— Samantha Jacobey, Captive
Lies can be expensive to maintain, Alexa. And I’m sure we haven’t seen one percent of the price that the lies in this case ultimately will exact.
— Theodore Jerome Cohen, House of Cards: Dead Men Tell No Tales
...when I see a man or woman alone, he or she looks mysterious to me, which is only to say that for a moment I see another human being clearly.
— Marilynne Robinson
A mystery is an unknown puzzle to solve like lies and secrets that you need to know. Lies and secrets that are like a cancer in our soul. They eat away what is good and leave only DESTRUCTION behind. A mystery to discover which makes life more COMPLICATED as it seems to be.
— Red Delachina
So, what are you going to do about it?”"Watch this!""Oh, that’s just freaking great. ‘Watch this!’ The two most dangerous words in the English language. I’m getting out of here before lightning strikes.
— Theodore Jerome Cohen, House of Cards: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Beneath the skin of everything is something nobody can know.
— Stephen Collins
Every man who begets a free act projects his personality into the infinite. If he gives a poor man a penny grudgingly, that penny pierces the poor man’s hand, falls, pierces the earth, bores holes in suns, crosses the firmament and compromises the universe. If he begets an impure act, he perhaps darkens thousands of hearts whom he does not know, who are mysteriously linked to him, and who need this man to be pure as a traveller dying of thirst needs the Gospel’s draught of water. A charitable act, an impulse of real pity sings for him the divine praises, from the time of Adam to the end of the ages; it cures the sick, consoles those in despair, calms storms, ransoms prisoners, converts the infidel and protects mankind
— Léon Bloy
She'd always despised the whole other woman thing, but here she was, entertaining the possibility.
— Diana Stevan, A Cry From The Deep
And to think I could be at home cleaning the cat box," Esther Charlemagne said. "Watching for a Peeping Tom is so much better."~ Chapter 2 The Night Shadow by Cheri Vause
— Cheri Vause
She had an ass that could make any man sin."~ Gunner Wilson
— Jodi Linton, Talk Dirty to Me, Cowboy: A Deputy Laney Briggs Novella
So, you think your coffee-addicted mother is amusing.” She pushed at his shoulder. “I’ll get even with you. I’ll show your naked baby pictures to your girlfriend.” ~ Chapter 9 The Truth and Nothing but Lies
— Cheri Vause, The Truth and Nothing but Lies
I only swing for one girl. But if she's into a certain kind of kink, who am I to deny her such pleasantries?"~ Luke Wagner
— Jodi Linton, Pretty Shameless
Have you checked your ass out lately? It’s pretty dang distracting, darling.” ~ Gunner Wilson
— Jodi Linton, Pretty Shameless
Why "revere" the unknowable? Why not find out what it is?
— Barbara Ehrenreich, Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
I guess you’re going for the hard-ass Texas Ranger thing today” ~ Laney Briggs
— Jodi Linton, Pretty Shameless
For the first time in a very many years, he felt the old vexation, the mingled impatience and pleasure at the world's beautiful refusal to yield up its mysteries without a fight.
— Michael Chabon
science enables you to look things differently.
— Rahul Bodkhe
Do you want to run away by dying? Or to live and accept the challenge? - Ciel Phantomhive
— Yana Toboso
Some people talk about illogical things like love.. But then they can rationally sacrifice their relatives. - Sebastian Michaelis
— Yana Toboso
It's okay to be honest about not knowing rather than spreading falsehood. While it is often said that honesty is the best policy, silence is the second best policy.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Sometimes love finds you when it’s ready. And when you’re ready too. How that happens is anybody’s guess. Love is the great mystery stew, its secrets well kept, its ingredients known to providence alone. While both people are being prepared, marinated, skewered,cooked to readiness in the fires of life, the cosmic alchemist is turning the pot, reverently preparing the base for the lovers who will meld into it. Only God knows when the stew is ready to be served. Divine timing, Divine dining…
— Jeff Brown
Openness to God demands our growing acceptance that we cannot create blueprints for our own lives. Though God’s character is unchanging, the ways of God are unpredictable, and there is a difference between arbitrariness and unpredictability.
— Enuma Okoro, Silence and Other Surprising Invitations of Advent
It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realize his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realize their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realized, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting point for an ideal that is other than itself. This is why music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret.
— Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
Weird is my personality, Complicated are my words and Mystery I am but those what gets you to like me.
— Red Delachina
Every chaos has an order hidden in it. What we see as a chaos, is actually driven by a very disciplined and dedicated order of things. What we need to do is focus on the stuff before us, make our way through this chaos, and that order will sort itself out for us
— Sapan Saxena, Finders, Keepers
Getting the poison to them is more difficult than it should be. I cannot just slip it into their food, they eat with the rest of the household, and as much as I dislike everyone here, I am not willing to poison them all. At least not yet.
— Robin LaFevers
I tried to lose myself in school and friends as best as I was able, trying to put Dorian's world out of my mind. But that was pretty much impossible with Clarrisa's constant, homicidally cheerful presence, which was, I supposed, something like making friends with a live grenade.
— V.M. Black, Time Out of Mind
I owe my first inkling of the problem of infinity to a large biscuit tin that was a source of vertiginous mystery during my childhood.
— Jorge Luis Borges
Where you been, girl?” Harvey answered. “I’ve been sendin’ you twits for the last hour.
— Ann Charles, An Ex to Grind in Deadwood
In all emotional conflicts, the thing you find the most difficult to do, is the thing that you should do."--Meyer's Law
— John D. MacDonald
We fail so easily to see the difference between fear of the unknown and respect for the unknown, thinking that those who do not hasten in with bright lights and knives are deterred by a holy and superstitious fear. Respect for the unknown is the attitude of those who, instead of raping nature, woo her until she gives herself. But what she gives, even then, is not the cold clarity of the surface but the warm inwardness of the body - a mysteriousness which is not merely a negation, a blank absence of knowledge, but that positive substance which we call wonderfull.
— Alan W. Watts, Nature, Man and Woman
P.I. Cassie Cruise--You don't have to like her, but you damn well better respect her
— S.L. Ellis, Lane Changes
Let certain things be uncertain.Appreciate the puzzle that life is,insofar as I know, after a scheme of steps,all Crosswords have a solution,and every Sudoku makes a lot of sense.
— Jasleen Kaur Gumber
You’re a mystery the way a sacrament is a mystery.
— Anne Rice, The Wolf Gift
But the thing that . . . that I touched . . . " I cried. "It was furry! It-" I stopped short, taken with a shudder. "I know," said Herrick.
— Margery Williams Bianco
Faith is not knowledge of what the mystery of the universe is, but the conviction that there is a mystery, and that it is greater than us.
— Rabino David Wolpe
How destiny plays games so thrilling,both stay in the same building.His books declared for the best seller of the year,and she lives in the apartment to his but upstairs.He is making fame, she has committed suicide severe.The same window of the tall building instigated,such varied colors.In the woman-frustration and fear.In the man- an inspiration so rare.They share the same height, same sight,of the same building.From which, one flew like kite and the other down right.
— Jasleen Kaur Gumber
It's never too late to achieve your dreams
— A.E.  Taylor, What If He Did It Before: Who knew there was a death at Rockingham, years before the crime of the century?
Mystery of love is like digging water: everything closes. (Mystère de l'amour est comme - Creuser l'eau : tout se referme)
— Charles de Leusse
I used to feel sorry for myself, then I discovered cocktails. If life has taught me anything, it’s that there’s nothing a stiff drink can’t fix.
— K.M. Morgan, Daisy McDare and the Deadly Art Affair
I don't believe this," Diesel said. "It just gets worse and worse. Bad I enough I have to play cupid to a butcher, button maker and veterinarian...now have to be sex therapist for a guy who gives people a rash.
— Janet Evanovich, Plum Lovin'
Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed there must be evil.
— George Gordon Byron
If one could order a crime as one does a dinner, what would you choose? . . . Let’s review the menu. Robbery? Frogery? No, I think not. Rather too vegetarian. It must be murder—red-blooded murder—with trimmings, of course.
— Agatha Christie, The A.B.C. Murders
Perhaps the palms had been whispering warnings in the sultry breeze.
— T.L. Parker, The Devil's Graveyards
It was quite elementary,' returned the detective with a languid gesture of one hand.
— Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk
Shadowed beneath his brow bone were cold dark eyes containing secrets and sadness, bitterness and grief.
— T.L. Parker, The Devil's Graveyards
Something very strange is going on in the depths of space.
— Carl Sagan, Cosmos
You look at me as if I were a conjuror,' Holmes remarked, with a laugh.
— Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk
[Her] idea of a fair trade--her lentils for your caviar.
— Maya Corrigan, By Cook or by Crook
She’d have to treat the interview more like risotto than instant rice, adding ingredients gradually while stirring gently.
— Maya Corrigan, By Cook or by Crook
The tiniest mite has an inner life of which we can know nothing.
— Marty Rubin
Oh please tell me we're not doing the Poirot thing again — the suspects in the library with the candlestick or whatever'.Max looked at him [DCI Cotton]. 'Fruitcake in this case. And what would you prefer? A car chase? It’s the most efficient way to flush out a killer, as Dame Agatha Christie well knew.
— G.M. Malliet, A Demon Summer
No matter which way you dice it, self-preservation is selfish.
— Keith  Houghton, Crossing Lines
Sheriff Fox was running his fingers through his thin hair. In a few short years, he’d look bald as a peeled apple. The Snoop sisters and their sidekick, the town’s bag lady no less, had traipsed into his office without knocking first. His admin (he couldn’t remember their names to save his life) had ushered them in, and they’d just dumped this hot potato into his lap.
— Ed Lynskey, The Ladybug Song
In the temple, I sit on the cool floor next to Grandfather, beneath the stern benevolence of the goddess's glance. Grandfather is clad in only a traditional silk dhoti--no fancy modern clothes for him. That's one of the things I admire about him, how he is always unapologetically, uncompromisingly himself. His spine is erect and impatient; white hairs blaze across his chest.
— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Oleander Girl
In the white marble hall of the hotel, I'm waltzing with Rajat. The music is a river and we're dancing in it. It winds against our bodies, muscular as a serpent.
— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Oleander Girl
Our town carves up and spits out a few seeds each year. We all approach autumn with dread because nobody wants to be a seed.
— Howard Odentz, Bloody Bloody Apple
It was frustrating and exhausting to gather bits of disconnected information without understanding how it all fitted together.
— Wendy Percival, The Indelible Stain
Charm is deceptive, Wise is sly, having talent is impressive and that puzzles you why. I, but not you, know the mask that I wear. Like how a master knows its masterpiece which is unknown to the world.
— Red Delachina
Jensen looked concerned."I'm reluctant to delay, but would a later appointment be better?" He glanced over at Vanelli and got an answering 'I told you so' look that I personally wanted to scrape off Vanelli's face with a blowtorch.
— Katherine Bayless, Deadly Remains
Just sit down and write! Me circa 2009
— Dana S. Feldman, Sweet Things Dying
When it came to watching television, Ted was ambidextrous.
— Judy Penz Sheluk, The Whole She-Bang 2
There are times when you have to commit a crime to prevent an even bigger one. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I can’t sleep at night.
— Judy Penz Sheluk, World Enough and Crime
I win.
— Abigail Haas, Dangerous Girls
There is no Mystery so great as Misery.
— Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince
The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you know who you are.
— J.P. Bloch, Identity Thief
There's only one way of escaping trouble; and that's killing things." Henry Higgins, Act V, Pygmalion
— George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion
Anonymity crowned him as if t'were the halo of romantic glory.
— Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
The mystery of the world is revealed only to the person who can look upon the material world with his physical eyes and simultaneously has the spiritual vision necessary to see the unseen spiritual world. One who knows both Matter and Spirit is thus the true knower, and is a spiritually intelligent being.
— Awdhesh Singh, Practising Spiritual Intelligence: For Innovation, Leadership and Happiness
One more cockeyed optimist thrown under the reality bus.
— Deborah Coonts, Lucky Bastard