38 Intriguing Mystery Quotes

Mystery has a unique allure that captivates the human imagination. It teases our curiosity and beckons us to explore the unknown. Whether encountered in literature, film, or the mysteries of everyday life, these enigmatic tales invite us to question, ponder, and delve deeper into the hidden layers of understanding. If you've ever felt that irresistible pull towards unraveling secrets, you're not alone. In this collection, we have compiled 38 intriguing mystery quotes that capture the essence of this compelling fascination. These quotes will transport you into realms of suspense and wonder, challenging your perceptions and igniting your imagination. Prepare to be both puzzled and inspired as you journey through the profound and captivating words of some of the greatest minds who have ever grappled with the enigmatic world of mystery.

1. “Our ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries. When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like.” - Noam Chomsky

2. “Belief in mysteries, any manner of mysteries, is the only lasting luxury in life.” - Zilpha Keatley Snyder

3. “Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

4. “The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.” - Raymond Chandler

5. “To me, detective stories are a great solace, a sort of mental knitting, where it doesn't matter if you drop a stitch."[From a letter to George Lyttelton]” - Rupert Hart-Davis

6. “The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.Dare to breach the surface and sink.” - Vera Nazarian

7. “There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations. Ignorance does not make a fool as surely as self-deception.” - Mortimer J. Adler

8. “It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.” - Diane Ackerman

9. “Not every puzzle is intended to be solved. Some are in place to test your limits. Others are, in fact, not puzzles at all...” - Vera Nazarian

10. “The ‘Muse’ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake.” - Roman Payne

11. “Holy men tell us life is a mystery.They embrace that concept happily.But some mysteries bite and barkand come to get you in the dark.” - Dean Koontz

12. “He fished in his pocket for his keys and instead pulled out the last geode, gray and smooth, earth-shaped. He held it, warming in his palm, thinking of all mysteries the world contained: layers of stone, concealed beneath the flesh of earth and grass; these dull rocks, with their glimmering hidden hearts.” - Kim Edwards

13. “No one could suspect the intricate mysteries of her heart.” - Kim Edwards

14. “The black bird cocked its head to one side, and then said, in a voice like stones being struck, 'You shadow man.''I'm Shadow,' said Shadow. The bird hopped up onto the fawn's rump, raised its head, ruffled its crown and neck feathers. It was enormous and its eyes were black beads. There was something intimidating about a bird that size, this close.'Says he will see you in Kay-ro.' tokked the raven. Shadow wondered which of Odin's ravens this was: Huginn or Munnin, Memory or Thought.'Kay-ro?' he asked.'In Egypt.''How am I going to go to Egypt?''Follow Mississippi. Go south. Find Jackal.''Look,' said Shadow, 'I don't want to seem like I'm-- Jesus, look...' he paused. Regrouped. He was cold, standing in a wood, talking to a big black bird who was currently brunching on Bambi. 'Okay. What I'm trying to say is I don't want mysteries.''Mysteries,' agreed the bird helpfully.'What I want is explanations. Jackal in Kay-ro. This does not help me. It's a line from a bad spy thriller.” - Neil Gaiman

15. “I am self-educated from genre books.” - Charlaine Harris

16. “Life Is Too Short--So Kiss Slowly,Laugh Insanely, Love Truly,And Live With Passion.” - Andy Vogt

17. “Current science and technology have unlocked all mysteries.We make sense of it in a gradual process under law and order.” - Toba Beta

18. “She loved mysteries so much that she became one.” - John Green

19. “I can’t reveal the mystery to either saint or sinner; I can’t state at length what I’ve said curtly; I achieve an altered state that I can’t explain; I have a secret that I cannot share.” - Omar Khayyám

20. “Theatres are curious places, magician's trick-boxes where the golden memories of dramtic triumphs linger like nostalgic ghosts, and where the unexplainable, the fantastic, the tragic, the comic and the absurd are routine occurences on and off the stage. Murders, mayhem, politcal intrigue, lucrative business, secret assignations, and of course, dinner.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

21. “Fasting from any nourishment, activity, involvement or pursuit—for any season—sets the stage for God to appear. Fasting is not a tool to pry wisdom out of God's hands or to force needed insight about a decision. Fasting is not a tool for gaining discipline or developing piety (whatever that might be). Instead, fasting is the bulimic act of ridding ourselves of our fullness to attune our senses to the mysteries that swirl in and around us."—Dan B. Allender, PhD” - Dan B. Allender

22. “Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional -- to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. 'The detective story,' observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, 'is a tragedy with a happy ending.' A storybook detective starts by confronting us with a murder and ends by absolving us of it. He clears us of guilt. He relieves us of uncertainty. He removes us from the presence of death.” - Kate Summerscale

23. “There is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

24. “The detective story, as created by Poe, is something as specialised and as intellectual as a chess problem, whereas the best English detective fiction has relied less on the beauty of the mathematical problem and much more on the intangible human element. [...] In The Moonstone the mystery is finally solved, not altogether by human ingenuity, but largely by accident. Since Collins, the best heroes of English detective fiction have been, like Sergeant Cuff, fallible.” - T.S. Eliot

25. “Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite ... Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families ... and you have no idea ... what games goes on!” - Charles Dickens

26. “I like a good murder that can't be found out. That is, of course it is very shocking, but I like to hear about it.” - Emily Eden

27. “Nature is not the number-one mystery, I’ve learned. It’s the heart that takes top honors.” - Beth Kephart

28. “Lady Sylvia McCordle: Mr Weissman -- Tell us about the film you're going to make.Morris Weissman: Oh, sure. It's called "Charlie Chan In London". It's a detective story.Mabel Nesbitt: Set in London?Morris Weissman: Well, not really. Most of it takes place at a shooting party in a country house. Sort of like this one, actually. Murder in the middle of the night, a lot of guests for the weekend, everyone's a suspect. You know, that sort of thing.Constance: How horrid. And who turns out to have done it?Morris Weissman: Oh, I couldn't tell you that. It would spoil it for you.Constance: Oh, but none of us will see it.” - Julian Fellowes

29. “A person who goes in search of God is wasting his time. He can walk a thousand roads and join many religions and sects–but he'll never find God that way. God is here, right now, at our side. We can see Him in this mist, in the ground we're walking on, even in my shoes. His angels keep watch while we sleep and help us in our work. In order to find God, you have only to look around. But meeting Him is not easy. The more God asks us to participate in Hismysteries, the more disoriented we become, because He asks us constantly tofollow our dreams and our hearts. And that's difficult to do when we're used to living in a different way. Finally we discover, to our surprise, that God wants us to be happy, because He is the father.” - Paulo Coelho

30. “It’s the unknown that draws people.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

31. “But perhaps there are in us forces other than mind and heart, other even than the senses - mysterious forces which take hold of us in the moments when the others are asleep; and perhaps it was such forces that Melchior had found in the depths of those pale eyes which had looked at him so timidly one evening when he had accosted the girl on the bank of the river, and had sat down beside her in the reeds - without knowing why - and had given her his hand.” - Romain Rolland

32. “The two men sat silent for a little, and then Lord Peter said: "D'you like your job?" The detective considered the question, and replied: "Yes—yes, I do. I know it to be useful, and I am fitted to it. I do it quite well—not with inspiration, perhaps, but sufficiently well to take a pride in it. It is full of variety and it forces one to keep up to the mark and not get slack. And there's a future to it. Yes, I like it. Why?" "Oh, nothing," said Peter. "It's a hobby to me, you see. I took it up when the bottom of things was rather knocked out for me, because it was so damned exciting, and the worst of it is, I enjoy it—up to a point. If it was all on paper I'd enjoy every bit of it. I love the beginning of a job—when one doesn't know any of the people and it's just exciting and amusing. But if it comes to really running down a live person and getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor devil, there don't seem as if there was any excuse for me buttin' in, since I don't have to make my livin' by it. And I feel as if I oughtn't ever to find it amusin'. But I do.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

33. “I'm convinced the true history of our time isn't what we read in newspapers or books...True history is almost invisible. It flows like an underground spring. It takes place in the shadows, and in silence, George. And only a chosen few know what that history is.” - Félix J. Palma

34. “My mouth was dry as cotton and my head hurt like hell. I tried to lift it, and the effort left me shaken and nauseated. I satisfied myself with just shifting my eyes around. I thought of all the books I'd read, all the mysteries. Spencer wouldn't have ended up this way. Neither would Kinsey Milhone. Or Henry O. Or Stephanie Plum, Well, yeah, maybe Stephanie Plum.” - Charlaine Harris

35. “The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.” - Philip Guedalla

36. “...both Tom and I adore detective stories. Isn't that so, Tom?" [Lady Brace]"Right!" agreed her husband...."But they've got to be proper detective stories. They've got to present a tricky, highly sophisticated problem, which you're given fair opportunity to solve.""And," amplified Virginia, "no saying they're psychological studies when the author can't write for beans.""Correct!" her husband agreed again. "Couldn't care less when you're supposed to get all excited as to whether the innocent man will be hanged or the innocent heroine will be seduced. Heroine ought to be seduced; what's she there for? The thing is the mystery. It's not worth reading if the mystery is simple or easy or no mystery at all.” - Carter Dickson

37. “...Myths aren’t fairy tales or legends—they’re an honest attempt to explain mysteries...” - John Geddes

38. “Trains are beautiful. They take people to places they've never been, faster than they could ever go themselves. Everyone who works on trains knows they have personalities, they're like people. They have their own mysteries.” - Sam Starbuck