Murder Story Quotes

“I’d been living in this room for years, it was the same as when I’d left it a few hours ago. And yet the way I looked around it, you’d think I’d never seen it before. So maybe it wasn’t quite the same to me—as when I’d left it.
I closed the door behind me. I suddenly caught my head between both hands, as suddenly as though it was something that had just fallen from the ceiling, alighting on my shoulders. I dragged myself sort of stickily across into the bathroom, as though something were impeding my feet, as though I had on snowshoes. I shrugged off my coat, rolled up my cuffs, spun the hot-water tap, tempered it with a little cold so I wouldn’t scald myself.
I started to wash my hands. They weren’t particularly grimy. I happened to look up, caught sight of my face in the cabinet-mirror before me. I quickly opened the cabinet, folded the mirror back out of the way. It’s a rare man that can’t stand the sight of his own face.”
― Cornell Woolrich

“Given the right circumstances, are we all potential killers? Was that the ultimate appeal of murder stories, that they reveal not just the facts of a particular crime but the truth about all of humanity, that civilisation and decency are only skin-deep and just beneath the surface we are all potentially monsters?”
― Anthony Horowitz, Marble Hall Murders