Peter Steiner > Quotes

“On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.”
― Peter Steiner

“evidence has a peculiar way of turning in the direction in which fear directs it.”
― Peter Steiner, L'Assassin

“There is a curious quality, more a failing, really, that all humans share, even the most intelligent and reasonable among us. It is this: fear and uncertainty can, and usually do, overwhelm even the most unassailable facts. Fear and uncertainty are stronger and more compelling than factual evidence can ever be, especially when the evidence is ambiguous, as evidence almost always is. And the weight of”
― Peter Steiner, L'Assassin

“Louis did not ask Solesme about her marriage to Pierre. And Solesme made no attempt to explain it. The love affair between Solesme and Louis was about sex and affection. “Do all Americans have such peculiar notions about marriage and love?” asked Solesme one day, after Louis had wondered aloud where things between them might be leading. “You seem to imagine that every passion must eventually become public, that it must be officially sanctioned. In fact, everything always seems to have to lead somewhere for you. What a busy and purposeful people you are. This has already taken us where it is taking us. The fact that it might not be going anywhere else, does that frighten you?” It did frighten Louis, but only a little. And whatever fears he had, disappeared altogether”
― Peter Steiner, Le Crime: A Thriller

“became something other than Mozart. His fingering was perfect. But he played the piece with a brittleness that made the notes sound like shattering glass. He had divided the melody into awkward and peculiar phrases. He had all the requisite technical skill. And yet, he not only had no conception of what Mozart had in mind for his music, Hugh Bowes seemed to have only the remotest conception of what music was at all. It was as if the pianist’s principal preoccupation must be to produce a particular sequence of sonic disturbances according to a prescribed set of dynamics, now loud, now soft, but without the slightest sense that they fit together as a whole, that they were evocative, or expressive, or meaningful, or, for that matter, beautiful.”
― Peter Steiner, Le Crime: A Thriller

“HAPPENED, THE DAY LOUIS HAD ARRIVED IN SAINT LEON SUR Dême for the first time was June 21, the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. The town sat astride the Dême. It did not strike him as an exceptionally pretty town. Just in the last few days he had come through half a dozen which were more beautiful. In fact, this was a corner of France where the villages were said to be particularly charming, owing, at least in part, to their being typically sited on a stream”
― Peter Steiner, Le Crime: A Thriller