JDL > JDL's Quotes

“I am a mathematician, sir. I never permit myself to think.”
― John Dickson Carr, The Hollow Man

“We don't fall in love with a woman because of her good character.”
― John Dickson Carr, He Who Whispers

“I have committed another crime, Hadley,' he said. 'I have guessed the truth again.”
― John Dickson Carr, The Three Coffins

“It’s all very well to have your eight suspects parading in their endless ring-around-the-rosebush outside the library. That’s fine. But give some sensible reason why they were there. If you must shower the room with bus tickets, provide a reason for that too. In other words, construct your story. Your present problem is not to explain the villainy of the guilty: it’s to explain the stupidity of the innocent.”
― John Dickson Carr, The Door To Doom And Other Detections

“My only claim to distinction among writers is that I do not believe my life contains any materials for a novel. I have prowled around Limehouse and the gamiest sections of Paris, but I have never yet seen (a) a really choice murder in a locked room, (b) a mysterious mastermind or (c) a really good‐looking adventuress with slant eyes.”
― John Dickson Carr

“Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.”
― Catullus, The Complete Poems

“In perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale. (Forever and ever, brother, hail and farewell.)”
― Catullus, The Complete Poems