Colin Dexter > Quotes

“He was somewhat of a loner by temperament--because though never wholly happy when alone, he was usually slightly more miserable when with other people.”
― Colin Dexter, The Wench is Dead

“I always drink at lunchtime. It helps my imagination.”
― Colin Dexter, The Dead of Jericho

“There's always time for one more pint. - Chief Inspector Morse”
― Colin Dexter, The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

“Morse stared morosely at the blotting paper. "It's just not my sort of case, Lewis. I know it's not a very nice thing to say, but I just get on better when we've got a body - a body that died from unnatural causes. That's all I ask. And we haven't got a body.”
― Colin Dexter, Last Seen Wearing

“It is strange to relate (for a man in his profession) that in addition to incurable acrophobia, arachnophobia, myophobia, and ornithophobia, Morse also suffered from necrophobia; and had he known what awaited him now, it is doubtful whether he would have dared to view the horridly disfigured corpse at all.”
― Colin Dexter, The Riddle of the Third Mile

“This was exactly why holidays were so valuable, he told himself: they allowed you to stand back a bit, and see where you were going rusty.”
― Colin Dexter, The Way Through The Woods

“Walters looked quizzically at Morse, who sat reading one of the glossy 'porno' magazines he had brought from upstairs.

"You still sex-mad, I see, Morse," said the surgeon.

"I don't seem to be able to shake it off, Max." Morse turned over a page. "And you don't improve much either, do you? You've been examining all our bloody corpses for donkey's years, and you still refuse to tell us when they died.”
― Colin Dexter, The Dead of Jericho

“Wives invariably flourish when deserted; it is the deserting male who often ends in disaster. (William McFee)”
― Colin Dexter, Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories

“Clever people seem not to feel the natural pleasure of bewilderment, and are always answering questions when the chief relish of a life is to go on asking them (Frank Moore Colby)”
― Colin Dexter, The Jewel That Was Ours

“...though I am still...exceedingly puzzled as to why our murderer should decide to draw almost inevitable attention to himself by wearing such a conspicuous pair of plimsolls and running around Burford for two and a half hours.”
― Colin Dexter , The Remorseful Day

“During the few minutes that Lewis was away, Morse was acutely conscious of the truth of the proposition that the wider the circle of knowledge the greater the circumference of ignorance.”
― Colin Dexter, The Riddle of the Third Mile

“As a boy, he had been moved by those words of the dying Socrates, suggesting that if death were just one long, unbroken, dreamless sleep, then a greater boon could hardly be bestowed upon mankind.”
― Colin Dexter, The Way Through the Woods

“I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew): Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. (RUDYARD KIPLING)”
― Colin Dexter, The Secret of Annexe 3

“As he lay abed on Sunday, 21 September, Morse was beset by the nagging feeling that there was so much to be done if only he could summon up the mental resolve to begin. It was like deferring a long-promised letter; the intention lay on the mind so heavily that the simple task seemed progressively to assume almost gigantic proportions.”
― Colin Dexter, Last Seen Wearing

“The secret of a happy life, Lewis, is to know when to stop and then to go that little bit further.”
― Colin Dexter, Inspector Morse: The First Three Novels

“A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek. (SAMUEL JOHNSON)”
― Colin Dexter, The Secret of Annexe 3

“He'd no time for reports. He suspected that about 95% of the written word was never read by anyone anyway.”
― Colin Dexter, Last Bus to Woodstock

“My life will not be significantly impoverished if I never see another Shakespearian comedy.”
― Colin Dexter, The Daughters of Cain

“He sighed and knew that life was full of ‘if only’ for everyone”
― Colin Dexter, The Dead of Jericho

“No, Lewis. Unlike you, I’ve lived a very sheltered life. I have tried to get invited along to one of these porno-parties, but everybody seems to think I’m above such things.”
― Colin Dexter, Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories

“she had the inestimable merit of being interesting.”
― Colin Dexter, Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories

“A man is little use when his wife’s a widow. Scottish proverb”
― Colin Dexter, Inspector Morse: The First Three Novels

“Morse poured himself a can of beer. "Champagne's a lovely drink, but it makes you thirsty, doesn't it?”
― Colin Dexter, The Way Through The Woods

“He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody ( Joseph Heller, Catch”
― Colin Dexter, The Remorseful Day

“Those who are absent, by its means become present: correspondence is the consolation of life. —VOLTAIRE, Philosophical Dictionary”
― Colin Dexter, Death Is Now My Neighbor

“was virtually certain of that. As the coach drew into St. Giles’, the sky was an open blue, and the sunlight gleamed on the cinnamon-coloured stone along the broad tree-lined avenue. “Here we are, in St. Giles.’ ” (Ashenden slipped into over-drive now.) “You can see the plane trees on either side of us, ablaze with the beautifully golden tints of autumn—and, on the left here, St. John’s College—and Balliol just beyond. And here in front of us, the famous Martyrs’ Memorial, modelled on the Eleanor Crosses of Edward the First, and designed by Gilbert Scott to honour the great Protestant martyrs—Cranmer and Latimer and, er …” “Nicholas Ridley,” supplied Mrs. Roscoe, as the coach turned right at the traffic lights and almost immediately pulled in on the left of Beaumont Street beneath the tall neo-Gothic façade of The Randolph Hotel. “At last!” cried Laura Stratton, with what might have been”
― Colin Dexter, The Jewel That Was Ours

“Nothing quite like it in the whole history of music," announced Morse magisterially, after Brünnhilde had ridden into the flames and the waves of the Rhine had finally rippled into silence.

"You think so?"
"Don't you?"
"I prefer Elizabethan madrigals, really."
For a few moments Morse said nothing, saddened by her lack of sensitivity, it seemed.”
― Colin Dexter, The Way Through The Woods

“Facing the media is more difficult than bathing a leper. —MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA”
― Colin Dexter, Death Is Now My Neighbor

“wailing like a dalek in distress”
― Colin Dexter, Inspector Morse: The First Three Novels

“Morse firmly believed that there was nothing so unsatisfactory as this kind of pornography; he liked it hot or not at all.”
― Colin Dexter, Last Seen Wearing