Dive into the gripping world of suspense and mystery with our carefully curated collection of the top 138 best thriller quotes. Whether you're a fan of heart-pounding novels, edge-of-your-seat movies, or captivating TV shows, these quotes capture the intensity, intrigue, and adrenaline that define the thriller genre. Get ready to be inspired, intrigued, and maybe even a little on edge as you explore some of the most memorable lines that keep us hooked from start to finish.
1. “Technos and clerics have much in common. Both take a world that can’t be fully understood and try to explain its fundamental properties. Clerics postulate beliefs that can never be proven; they demand you accept these postulates as your Faith, which will guide your actions and thoughts. It’s a top down way of thinking; start with the big picture and derive rules for living. Fundamental knowledge is static. Even the derived rules rarely change.Technos work from the bottom up. They build a baseline of observations and formulate theories to explain these phenomena. Nothing is sacred; with new observations, theories are discarded or modified to fit the facts.Technos and clerics; how could they not be in conflict?Dan Ronco’s Diary, 2016” - Dan Ronco
2. “She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.” - Jeffrey Deaver
3. “ALWAYS KEEP YOUR DREAMS ALIVE” - Patricia Smith
4. “As the sun rules the day and the moon governs the night, so too, we are connected by: the air that we breathe, light that we see and the darkness that follows. Life is too short to waste it on disagreements. Surely, we can all agree to disagree. So let us find a common ground, form a union and spread joy, happiness and freedom around the world for the benefit of you, me and the future generations to come. ” - Raymond Beresford Hamilton
5. “I always wanted to eat with a Negro,” Grandma said.Yeah, well I always wanted to eat with a boney-assed old white woman,” Lula said. “So I guess this works out good.” - Janet Evanovich
6. “I am who I am and always shall be.” - Laura Elizabeth
7. “Everything we know and believe about deity and divinity nowadays, is a direct origin of old civilizations. Everybody, Greeks, Saxons, Assyrians and Soumerians, all imitate the ancient ways of the first tribes of central Africa (Mason father to his son in "The Omniconstant” - Christos Rodoulla Tsiailis
8. “I'm giving serious thought into eating yor wife” - Hannibal Lecter” - Thomas Harris
9. “In darkness there is death.” - Bob Mayer
10. “I’ve never needed a bodyguard, Evan.”His hands stilled on the glasses. “Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea now.”“It’s a terrible idea. I would never want anyone watching every move I make. It’s unnerving. There are fresh lemons in the bottom drawer.”Evan squatted and tugged open the vegetable crisper inside the refrigerator. “You know,” he waved a piece of the yellow fruit for emphasis, “you may want to think about it, though.”Morgan smacked the table so hard the salt and pepper shakers jumped.He grinned and stood. “Haven’t lost your temper, I see.”“My temper wasn’t burned.” - Rachel Carrington
11. “The reader is the final arbiter.” - Sam Reaves
12. “When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week, then there's either something wrong with your skills or something wrong with your world. And there's nothing wrong with my skills.” - Jonathan Maberry
13. “But you're a monk!” - Van Helsing
14. “The sweetest smiles hold the darkest secrets...” - Sara Shepard
15. “From Chapter 1:The main rub was the lack of RnR and I burned out. Three years and three stripes later, I ejected from the MP Corps, vowing I'd never do police or criminal investigative work again. Instead, I returned home when I should've learned better.” - Ed Lynskey
16. “That sure as fuck ain't no cow” - Scott Sigler
17. “She shoved her hands in the deep silk-lined pockets…where she felt the cold steel of a revolver.” - Sherry Morris
18. “Never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret.” - Sara Shepard
19. “My life is hard. No one would rob me of that. The clothes I am wearing came out of a knotted up black plastic trash bag from a resale shop downtown. And not the downtown where shiny cars wink at you in the sunlight. If a car winks at you in this area it’s being driven by a person you would be best to avoid. My side of downtown is crumbling and skirted by chain link fences.--Rocky Evans” - Gwenn Wright
20. “Life is a sewer and we are all but swimmers within it. Smart people do the backstroke. (In other words you gotta have a giggle.)” - Stephen B. Pearl
21. “Because I was single, there was a chance I was a homosexual. Because I went to Syracuse, wherever that was, then I was probably a Communist. Or worse, a Liberal. Because I was from Memphis, I was a subversive intent on embarrassing Ford County.” - John Grisham
22. “Brian came in heavy at that moment on his guitar, the rapid, high-pitched squeal ranging back and forth as his fingers flew along the frets. As the intro's tempo grew more rapid, Bekka heard Derek's subtle bass line as it worked its way in. After another few seconds Will came in, slow at first, but racing along to match the others' pace. When their combined efforts seemed unable to get any heavier, David jumped into the mix.As the sound got nice and heavy, Bekka began to rock back-and-forth onstage. In front of her, hundreds of metal-lovers began to jump and gyrate to their music. She matched their movements for a moment, enjoying the connection that was being made, before stepping over to the keyboard that had been set up behind her. Sliding her microphone into an attached cradle, she assumed her position and got ready. Right on cue, all the others stopped playing, throwing the auditorium into an abrupt silence. Before the crowd could react, however, Bekka's fingers began to work the keys, issuing a rhythm that was much softer and slower than what had been built up. The audience's violent thrash-dance calmed at that moment and they began to sway in response.Bekka smiled to herself.This is what she lived for.” - Nathan Squiers
23. “I didn't know that once you've proven yourself useful to the wrong people, you'll never be free again.” - Steve Hamilton
24. “I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid I'll never get a chance to live!” - A.A. Bell
25. “I was such a messed up person and he was still holding on.” - Holly Hood
26. “Jane woke, stretched, and decided to kill herself. If she hadn’t found a reason to live by the end of the day she would jump from the rig. It felt good to have a plan.” - Adam Baker
27. “The young all have the same dream: to save the world. Some quickly forget this dream, convinced that there are more important things to do, like having a family, earning money, traveling, and learning a foreign language. Others, though, decide that it really is possible to make a difference in society and to shape the world we will hand on to future generations.” - Paulo Coelho
28. “Democrats and Republicans were essentially the same party with different faces and that was why, no matter how many promises each leader made, significant change rarely transpired.” - James Morcan, Lance Morcan
29. “My heart, for unknown reasons, seems to freeze in motion in my chest. I can see he senses it and he holds his pause to enjoy my suffering, prolonging my ignorance. “Viktor, what?” - Gwenn Wright
30. “Oh God,” Jenna said, “will you shut up and kiss me before I change my mind?” - Richard Finney
31. “I believe that on any trip to heaven, there are always detours through hell.” - Richard Finney
32. “My power grew angry that it was confined to my petite frame and pulled against my taut skin. Growing bolder, it tore through my skin to lay flat against my outer edge. The glowing energy began to solidify against my flesh; it lengthened to mold itself to my frame and contained me in a transparent cocoon. I flexed my fingers against the waxy surface and began to panic. I was cut off from my coven now and could not feel their thoughts. I could see the panic on their faces as I fell onto my side to convulse.” - J.D. Stroube
33. “It ain't always rocket science, sometimes a door is just a door.” - James Rollins
34. “Technology is a goddamn bully.” - Scott Cherney
35. “After everything I've been through, the last thing I'm going to apologize for is my paranoia.” - Richard Finney
36. “All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the soft Persian rug that led to the staircase in my father’s home. In the glow of lightning the dancing trees are illuminated but I see my mother in the glow of candlelight, spinning, twirling, her hair fanned out behind her. It is falling over me, saturating my thoughts, and I cannot. I cannot let it in.” - Gwenn Wright
37. “When dancing with a pit bull, it's always best to let him lead.” - Michael Barnett
38. “If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there".” - Brian Bianco
39. “Hell had frozen over and I was lost in its endless labyrinth.” - Cameo Renae
40. “Enough with the sadness! This dream is not for cry-babies...” he said, his face beaming with a wide smile.” - Cameo Renae
41. “A fallow mind is a field of discontent.” - John H. Cunningham
42. “Truth is irrelevant; what matters is what people believe.” - Henry Mosquera
43. “Maligned –powerfully-drawn characters acting out a disturbing view of our future.” -David Compton, New York Times Best-Selling author” - Kathleen Papajohn
44. “Whenever Elliot Norther’s wife was nervous she baked. With the murder of Harriet Mason, her husband’s close colleague at the Faculty, she had been unable to resist a couple of Victoria sponges. During the frenzied press speculation about the identity of the murderer, a Dundee cake had appeared, followed swiftly by a Battenberg and a Lemon Drizzle. Since news of the Wildencrust murder broke, the kitchen, dining room and study had come to resemble the storerooms of an industrial bakery, every surface heaving with the weight of sponge and cream. Yesterday, having at last been overwhelmed by the fear and rumour that swept the town, she had taken herself off to her mother’s house in Hampstead, leaving her husband to soldier on alone. When he had last seen his wife, Elliot Norther noticed that she had been putting the finishing touches to an impressive, triple-tiered wedding cake, beating a batch of royal icing into a sickly paste.” - Robert Clear
45. “The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself.Michel de Montaigne” - Laurie Stevens
46. “What’s the hurry? From my experience, dead bodies don’t get any deader.” - David Harry
47. “The professor’s motive was in the grand scheme of things terribly petty ” Greenwood said. “"Pilate’s Cross" is inspired by the questions this terrible crime created but as a work of fiction it is set in a different place and time and has a more complex motive for the murders.” - J. Alexander Greenwood
48. “Contrary to the media circus which portrayed politicians as all-powerful figures, Kentbridge knew from experience the vast majority of US Government officials – elected or otherwise – were puppets who only had the illusion of power.” - James Morcan, Lance Morcan
49. “The purpose of having the orphans study all these diverse fields was not for them to just become geniuses, but to become polymaths – meaning they would be geniuses in a wide variety of fields.” - James Morcan, Lance Morcan
50. “Sometimes the hardest journeys are the ones that begin with little hope. But we need to take them anyway.” - Richard Finney
51. “Any self-defense class worth its salt will tell you thatyou don’t pull out a weapon unless you intend to use it.The same should apply to ballsy remarks.” - Henry Mosquera
52. “I don’t care what Einstein said about God not playing dice; If he exists, he’s addicted to craps.” - Henry Mosquera
53. “Marisa starts to snoop. I might as well too. It's not often that I get to visit a water pellet company in a freaky refugee nation. -from Fireseed One” - Catherine Stine
54. “but true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no "almost", "in between", "most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why "perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience.” - Richard Doetsch
55. “My father once told me that it’s not enough for a man to be lucky; that a guy has to know when that streak is on for him.” - Henry Mosquera
56. “He was a living dead man. According to official records he had died, not once, but twice. yet he still breathed” - Matt Hilton
57. “Some may call me a vigilante. I think i've got problems to fix.” - Matt Hilton
58. “I think all artists struggle to represent the geometryof life in their own way, just like writers deal witharchetypes. There are only so many stories that you cantell, but an infinite number of storytellers.” - Henry Mosquera
59. “Listen, we got two stiffs and a river of red in a villa in Herne Bay...” - Rhys Chamberlain
60. “You may suppose that perhaps this Walter T. Wallace found his destiny in food and passed down to his progeny a legacy like that of the great Colonel Sanders. The folks here in Wallace County would love to be able to tell you this is so. But no, like their granddaddy, the Wallace men were thievin’ crooks, always with a scheme ready to separate the weak from their hard-earned money.” - Gwenn Wright
61. “Mark had a better chance interpreting body language at Madame Tussauds.” - Kim Aleksander
62. “...Don't insult readers by questioning the extent of their imaginations. Most need only to be nudged to solve a good mystery.” - Peggy Kopman-Owens
63. “James is why I never left. I should have left.” - Kate Avelynn
64. “One day you see a man walking down the road, the next day you come to his yard and find him dead... Why is it that he cannot do what the living do? It is because the thing that gave power to these parts is no longer there. That is the duppy, and that is the most powerful part of any man. Everybody has evil in them, and when a man is alive... he will not abandon himself to many evil things. But when the duppy leaves the body, it no longer has anything to restrain it and it will do more terrible things than any man ever dreamed of.- From 'Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica', Zora Neale Hurston, 1938” - Charles A. Cornell
65. “Love Rocks The De La Cruz's World” - P.T. Macias
66. “Readers often tell me after they've read the books, they find it difficult to sum up the plot in a simple way. My response is, "It's a story about the love a father shares for his daughter. All the rest is just filler."- MJ Mancini, on his best-selling trilogy, "Revelation".” - MJ Mancini
67. “This would become a lifelong pattern, sitting in my comfort zone high above the world in some sort of self-imposed exile.” - Peggy Kopman-Owens
68. “Use your intuition. Picture how things happen, why they happen. Don’t stick rigidly to first impressions, and once you’ve read the rule book, throw it away. Better still, burn the bastard.” - Andrew Barrett
69. “I put it to the great man [Hitchcock], the key to fictitious terror is partition or containment: so long as the Bates Motel is sealed off from our world, we want to peer in, like at a scorpion enclosure. But a film that shows the world is a Bates Motel, well, that's... the stuff of Buchloe, dystopia, depression. We'll dip our toes in a predatory, amoral, godless unive3rse, but only our toes.” - David Mitchell
70. “Only I was capable of saving her now, and that, as far as anyone could argue, may have made me worse than all the devils and the demons, but it also, more accurately, made me better than all the angels and gods.” - Jared S. Anderson
71. “Meaning, yes -- I don't really exist except on the page or in the back of your brain. But if you think it's weird a fictional character's telling this story, you ain't seen what happened, yet.” - Kyle Michel Sullivan
72. “I guess you could say I'm allergic to sunlight. If I'm exposed to it, it could kill me.” - Lee Thompson
73. “Life's nycer when it's Naughtie!” - Naughtie Scribe
74. “The lights flickered, the pain went away, and her mother was holding her, singing ‘Sleep sweet sleep’. (The Children of Ankh series) Kim Cormack” - Kim Cormack
75. “Jeopardy, Mom! You have got to get on Jeopardy! Seriously! You could marry Alex Trebek! You could be Alex and Alex Trebek! You could be Alex SQUARED!” - Diane L. Randle
76. “We thought we were invincible and Dominic proved us all wrong,” - Jesse Carlisle” - Nina D'Angelo
77. “I needed to know, Jesse. I needed to get inside his head. To find this son of a bitch, I need to get inside his head.” - Stephanie Carovella” - Nina D'Angelo
78. “Her eyes narrowing, she turned her attention back to where Stephanie stood with Ben, feeling her own pain turn to intense fury. “Dominic knew her so damn well because he was usually thinking the same thing. She was his female version – two halves fitting perfectly together,” Gena spat out, anger inflected in her voice. “Like him, she’s reckless and like him, once she gets something into her head nothing or no one will change her mind.” Her fury revealed itself in her eyes, as she spat out, “And, like him, she’s going to get herself killed.” - Gena Evans, Nowhere to Run” - Nina D'Angelo
79. “Books are keys that open many doors.” - James Rollins
80. “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of being well-preserved, but to skid sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, still screaming, 'Whoo what a ride!” - Theresa Hollis
81. “Not that it was a crazy complicated skill, but operating an espresso machine during high traffic could be added to my repertoire along with card tricks and how to fire a Colt .45.(Quote taken from ARC, subject to change)” - Karina Halle
82. “Wisdom Is The Principal Thing” - kayode Infomart
83. “The terror is trapped inside of him and paralyzes him. He closes his eyes again and tries to drown out the scream - but it keeps ringing and ringing and ringing in his ears.” - Suneeta Misra
84. “People cheer on tyrants for fear of becoming targets.” - Andrew Sturm
85. “I had a quack in the floor. So, I had to use ductile.” - Andrew Sturm
86. “No matter how you twist and turn, your ass is always in the back.” - Andrew Sturm
87. “…the gavel became an extension of his arm and he used it to bludgeon the court into submission.” - William Deihl
88. “Dawn cackles as she guides me through the all-glass porch. Thinner, paler Reina shuffles about behind Dawn, watching as I slip my boots off. Although she tries to hide her hands, her fingers flicker nervously. I place my boots neatly on the floor of the porch beside the other pairs in the shadows under the coats. Music drifts through to us from a distant room – it’s the Beach Boys’ California Dreamin’. Dawn looks at me and I smile – they’ve put the record on for me. Dawn nods along happily. ‘Hear you’re a surfer boy!’ she says and she mimics riding a wave.” - Amaya Ellman
89. “Out in the field, any connection with home just makes you weaker. It reminds you that you were once civilized, soft; and that can get you killed faster than a bullet through the head.” - Henry Mosquera
90. “You know when I told you the joke about how a friend will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body? I was only kidding.” - Brad Thor
91. “Nothing is ‘wrong’ with me, Dan. What’s wrong with you? she said in the same eerily quiet voice, dark eyes fixated on Dan, as she breathed heavily.” - Martin Hopkins
92. “Snowmageddon.Dirty glacial clouds hammered the city's anvil. On the District of Columbia’s northwestern edge, gusts of snow rolled across the Park Road Bridge like volcanic ash.” - Simon Conway
93. “الترويض و التحكم كمثل تجربة عبور الطريق، يجب عليك المشي قليلاً لمنطقة الاختناق حتى تستطيع العبور سريعاً و سالماً؛ فالاختناق يولّد التباطؤ، و التباطؤ يولّد رؤية أوضح و حلول أكثر، و اختيارات أدق و أبرح..” - أنور هاني
94. “A soft mist blew around them. Raindrops glistened in his hair, shimmering under the pale glow of the light post. His eyes were shadowed beneath wispy fringes, but the silver in them glinted like pools of liquid mercury. Her breath caught. It must have made a sound because his fingers tightened. His shaky exhale whispered across her face.“This,” he whispered so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. “Is why you are so bad for me.” - Airicka Phoenix
95. “His eyes were twin flakes of ember floating into the night from a roaring inferno. “I won’t let anything happen to you. No matter what I have to do, I will keep you safe.” - Airicka Phoenix
96. “Redemption is for the weak. The strong keep sinning” - Marvin Amazon
97. “Annabelle, I'm going to kill you!" I cried, frowning at the mess. Then I glanced down the stairway and gasped.It looked like someone had beaten me to it.” - Cleo Coyle
98. “There is a moment of sheer panic when I realize that Paul's apartment overlooks the park... and is obviously more expensive than mine.” - Patrick Bateman
99. “Anticipation tingled in my stomach: the kind of tingle that at first you don’t know if it’s a good tingle or a bad tingle – just a tingle.” - Terry Murphy
100. “It’s still all “ifs” “buts” and “maybes”.’ ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But if what I’m saying is correct …” - Terry Murphy
101. “Thanks, but no thanks. I need my makeup honey. - Carol” - Matthew Leeth
102. “I’ve been thinking that you, me and Kristy should all have a sleepover or something like that. Wouldn‘t that be so cool! - Carol” - Matthew Leeth
103. “Meskipun terbiasa tidak diacuhkan, ketika guru diam saja, kemana aku bisa berlindung?” - Evi Sri Rezeki
104. “ubahlah hidup dengan menjadi dalang bagi hidup itu sendiri” - Evi Sri Rezeki
105. “Mengapa ketika manusia diberi sedikit kekuasaan, dia akan mempergunakan lebih dari seharusnya?” - Evi Sri Rezeki
106. “I thought part of the idea of having therapy was putting one in touch with his or her feelings. And don’t give me all that about transference, and counter-transference and all that. I know what I feel. And it has nothing to do with all that. And you also feel for me. And if you don’t know that, then maybe it’s you who needs to have therapy to gain a better knowledge of yourself.” - Olga Núñez Miret
107. “A Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, once said: ‘Dijiste media verdad. Dirán que mientes dos veces si dices la otra mitad.’”“Translated means…”“You told a half-truth. They’ll say you lie twice when you tell the other half.” - Olga Núñez Miret
108. “Jill, a comprehensive school teacher in her early thirties, has put her dark past behind her to become a lady in control of her own life. Successful in her career, soon to be divorced and with no emotional ties, she is content. Except that one morning, while trying to find work for a recalcitrant Year 9 class, she finds herself in a dark and murky street in Victorian England. The image soon disappears and she is back in the classroom, but the children she was teaching have gone and so has an hour of her life. Soon Jill finds herself living two parallel lives, one as a teacher and the other as a Victorian governess. And this is just the beginning” - Jan Hunter
109. “THERE WAS ALWAYS a boy in your life that common sense and the prayers of parents told you to stay away from: fast talker, fast car, and fast hands. He was the boy your father kept a loaded shotgun by the door for and met on the front porch if he ever thought about venturing onto his property…let alone the threshold. He was the tall, dark, mysteriously handsome, and uncharacter-istically quiet one that made you wonder what was going on in his head, and that little voice in your head said it wasn’t always so honorable. He was the boy you broke all of the rules over because bad-boys equaled excitement and the rebel in you liked the ride.” - A.J. Lape
110. “As a writer, I will go down any dark alley, inch my way through the tightest crawl space, and feed on your every fear. I will take your sense of calm and tear it to shreds. - Horror Author Barbara Watkins” - Barbara Watkins
111. “The Professor is coming...” - M Hopkins
112. “He had the muscular definition of a man who had spent his life restraining elephants in heat.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
113. “Your eyes betray a sadness that only a worthy man can conjure, but never solve” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
114. “I appreciate the gesture, but you don't have to undress in order to apologize” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
115. “.... does a fair trial necessarily amount to a fair outcome?” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
116. “Abel Muranda fought off furious red ants with mandibles that could cut through a miser's padlock.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
117. “Never is a man more proud than when he shuffles paper in front of an illiterate person.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
118. “The primitive craving for survival is universal in all things capable of dying. Now imagine if you could isolate the basic element that drives all animals to fight for survival? What would you do with it? I already had my own ideas when I started my search for an entity I eventually dubbed “The Determination Gene”.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
119. “Blood is a reservoir of delights. It is a treasure trove for those who know what to look for, and how to isolate it from the rest of the junk. I know how to do both.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
120. “You keep distracting from the main point, Vaida. I did not come to Harare to study other people’s scars. I have my own to worry about. They make me sick. I will never recover from the events that carved them into my body. You should focus on healing yours instead of creating new ones.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
121. “Vaida planted her shoulders into the back of her chair and slid her lower body towards the edge of the seat. The fabric of her retracting skirt increased the protrusion of her legs. When she was in position, Vaida made a fine adjustment to achieve the desired view.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
122. “Being a hangman requires you to take someone else’s life based on someone else’s judgment, and carry it out on someone else’s schedule. The job does not provide the same satisfaction that an ordinary murderer gets from smashing a skull. It robs them of the fulfillment of plunging a knife into someone’s throat. In the world of capital punishment, the prisoner’s crimes have been sanitized by years of sitting on death row. By then, the execution is a cold and impersonal affair. There is prayer, a noose, and a few last words. The prisoner then experiences a sudden rush of blood to the head. At the end of it all, you have a broken neck and a dead body swinging from the end of a rope. That is it. You don’t get to manhandle them with your own hands. That’s why the brutes you mention will never be hired. So you see, Vaida, this is not a job for a murderer. It is a job for a humanitarian.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
123. “Poetic words are usually more stimulating than accurate. Taking them too seriously is a mistake.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
124. “MUSHAKABVU, I may be in a tough spot, but I am more worried about you. I have never experienced anything close to a sense of kinship with any of my clients, let alone those I have never met. However, the world you sent me to investigate has inspired a selfless concern that is uncommon between strangers. I hope you are just a curious, distant observer in the affairs I have been probing ... But something tells me this hope was frustrated long before our acquaintance.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
125. “One candidate who considered applying for the position explained his change of heart: “That job is like unprotected sex. It feels amazing at the time, but there is a good chance you will pay for it later. None of the benefits are worth the pleasure.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
126. “... the successful recruit must be empathetic. This condition rules out the sadistic, the vengeful, and the enthusiastic. Therefore, many of the garden-variety killers who applied so far have had no chance of success, especially those who are already behind bars.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
127. “When a group of people are forced to navigate a minefield together, everyone feels a grudging sense of comfort when someone else gets blown up. Though there may be other unseen landmines left in the ground, each death creates a safe spot. A landmine cannot explode twice in the same place. Sure, the explosion robs the survivors of a comrade. Still, each death makes everyone’s next step marginally safer. So everyone keeps walking with grief on their faces, and relief in their hearts. Their own deaths are further postponed by the end of another life.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
128. “The girl had a special way of saying “anything”. The gods had blessed her voice with a special monopoly. It delivered an acoustic chocolate that was laced with all flavours of euphoria. The substance led to surges in testosterone in all types of men, including the average botanist. “Anything.” The way she handled the word endowed it with so many possibilities. Professor Khupe decided to investigate how many of these Ketiwe would let him explore. To his delight the parameters of the word had proven to be quite elastic.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
129. “He looked up to the gods but never accepted their eternal superiority. For better or worse, plotting their overthrow was the only aspiration that stoked the fires of destiny. Such an exalted ambition was worthy of a man who had long accomplished the chore of dominating human minds. A man so terrified of finding himself alone in a stratosphere where no one could understand just how exceptional he was. In that place, the presumed existence of gods was a great comfort, especially in a profession in which his rivals were mere mortals.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
130. “... eloquence is merely the product of intelligence. History is not shaped by men of genius. It is shaped by men of unwavering will. Men who focus whatever brains they have on the savvy application of power. In the end, brawn will always do the heavy lifting. Brawn will always win the war.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
131. “Professor Khupe felt his chest swell with pride. It was doing so without his encouragement. If an electrical fault had stopped the elevator from rising, his inflating ego would have powered the remainder of their journey to the twenty-second floor.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
132. “Mr. Gweta looked ten years younger than Professor Khupe had expected. His jet-black hair was trimmed so neatly that it would make a manicured golf course look scruffy. His face was exceptionally smooth, giving the impression that he had been born without skin pores and transitioned through puberty devoid of any facial hair to pockmark his countenance. Mr. Gweta’s face was perfectly symmetrical. An ant walking from one side to the other would experience a serious case of déjà vu.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
133. “I tell you, Professor, growing up is a full contact sport. Somewhere in our brains, foolishness and naïveté join forces with a false sense of invincibility. Together, they score own-goals against their host’s interests. All this happens while that referee known as ‘reason’ is collapsed in a drunken stupor, unable to stop the madness. When he finally wakes up, all he can do is grant the useless penalty known as ‘hindsight’. But the outcome remains unchanged. The game is lost …” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
134. “Not all diseases come from bacteria and viruses, Professor. The worst often come from things you cannot see under a microscope. This plant is infested with an aggressive strain of such invisible germs.” - Taona Dumisani Chiveneko
135. “Pape called Basil his sanctuary. In truth we all exist in our own sanctuaries-but I don't mean cathedrals or prisons. I'm talking about our hearts and minds, which imprison us in anxiety, dear, insecurity, anger and other forms of misery. The walls & bars that keep most in a constant state of suffering are thoughts and emotions, not concrete & steel. It's a disease. Insanity. Most are afflicted by it, regardless of which side of the law they find themselves on or where they lay their heads at night. To be free of this, Renee, is to be free indeed.” - Ted Dekker
136. “To write well is to have felt a tingle of joy in your being; to have left a little of your blood on the page' B.J.Kibble, author of DRY RAIN, LEGION, CHASING THE WIND,and CRIES FROM THE GRAVE.” - B.J. Kibble
137. “So? I know damn well that I didn’t poison her.”Veronica Lane, M.D., Treating Murder” - Gabrielle Black
138. “Would the man in the cabin have come after them? Would he have sent someone else? Or would he have never even known they were there and they could have just gone back to normal life.Normal Life. He didn’t even know what that would be now.” - Shelley K. Wall
