85 Insightful Crime Quotes

In the realm of literature and film, crime stories captivate audiences with their complex portrayals of human nature, moral dilemmas, and the thin line between right and wrong. Whether drawn from true events or crafted from vivid imaginations, crime narratives offer profound insights into society's psyche and the human condition. In this collection, we've gathered 85 of the most insightful crime quotes, each reflecting the sharp observations and clever musings of authors, detectives, and philosophers on crime and justice. Dive into these poignant words that resonate with truth and intrigue, offering a glimpse into the darker yet fascinating aspects of humanity.

1. “Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.” - Neal Stephenson

2. “Criminal: a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.” - Howard Scott

3. “I want to kill this degenerate bastard brother of yours. But I am not selfish, I do not want to deprive you of that honor.” - William Balsamo

4. “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

5. “Maupassant is a man of mitigating circumstances, the lawyer who can bring the jurors around by demonstrating that they too could have committed such a crime. We are all murderers.” - Philippe Lejeune

6. “For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.” - Noam Chomsky

7. “In my opinion, if, as the result of certain combinations, Kepler's or Newton's discoveries could become known to people in no other way than by sacrificing the lives of one, or ten, or a hundred or more people who were hindering the discovery, or standing as an obstacle in its path, then Newton would have the right, and it would even be his duty... to remove those ten or a hundred people, in order to make his discoveries known to mankind. It by no means follows from this, incidentally, that Newton should have the right to kill anyone he pleases, whomever happens along, or to steal from the market every day. Further, I recall developing in my article the idea that all... well, let's say, the lawgivers and founders of mankind, starting from the most ancient and going on to the Lycurguses, the Solons, the Muhammads, the Napoleons, and so forth, that all of them to a man were criminals, from the fact alone that in giving a new law, they thereby violated the old one, held sacred by society and passed down from their fathers, and they certainly did not stop at shedding blood either, if it happened that blood (sometimes quite innocent and shed valiantly for the ancient law) could help them.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

8. “Oh,' said a very white body as it threw a wrist watch to the ground which broke without attracting anyone's attention, 'Oh, how can anyone not love poetry, natural machines, large white houses, the brilliance of steel, crimes and wild passions?” - Robert Desnos

9. “Feeling - what authentic human fun!” - Jeff Lindsay

10. “There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.” - Joseph Pulitzer

11. “Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.” - George Bernard Shaw

12. “While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it.While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” - Eugene Debs

13. “It's funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they're related. Look at pictures from ten years later and you can see that there's a new kind of face starting to predominate, and that the old faces are fading away and vanishing, never to be seen again.” - Alan Moore

14. “When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.” - Richard Stark

15. “My mother believed in all superstitions, plus she made some up.” - Donald E. Westlake

16. “To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace” - Malcolm X

17. “A society gets the criminals it deserves.” - Val MacDermid

18. “Somewhere in the ocean, a shark was missing its cold eyes because this man had them.” - Steve Hamilton

19. “The reader is the final arbiter.” - Sam Reaves

20. “It is exactly the fear of revenge that motivates the deepest crimes, from the killing of the enemy's children lest they grow up to play their own part, to the erasure of the enemy's graveyards and holy places so that his hated name can be forgotten.” - Christopher Hitchens

21. “This is what you know about someone you have to hate: he charges you with his crime and castigates himself in you.” - Philip Roth

22. “Murphy's face went through several mutations as he spoke, as if small animals were scurrying about just beneath his skin.” - Pete Hautman

23. “You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"It will not."If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."I, also M. Ratchett."What's wrong with my proposition?"Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.” - Agatha Christie

24. “And then there was her face: her white skin, her brown eyes, and her expression, so soft and beautiful; she looked as though she were constantly getting ready to ask a question. Even an immaculately crafted doll could not have been as lovely.” - Natsuo Kirino

25. “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.” - Dashiell Hammett

26. “In my world, people are always plotting. Youhave no idea of all the crimes people in business commit everyday. Like it was nothing. Or there’s a set of special rules for them.Remember when Bush made that whole speech about ‘corporateethics’ last year? What a fraud. You think stuff like Enron orWorldCom is an aberration? It’s only the tip. Business is a religion.Probably the only one practiced all over the world.” - Andrew Vachss

27. “I'm not working-class: I come from the criminal classes.” - Peter O'Toole

28. “I stood behind the man’s chair, my blade at his throat. “Why do you do it?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer. “Kill people, and blow up buildings, and sell drugs?” It was what they all did. Committed crimes. That was why I killed them. “You’re a criminal, a terrorist, a danger. And I have been asked to take you out.” I told him. I was legend now, yet he asked the same question all the others did. “What is your name?” My sensitive ears tuned out the slit as my sword cut his neck. I walked around the chair to see his face. I watched as his eyes–slowly at first–changed from blue to milky white. His skin went pale. And as I heard him take his last breath, I ducked in so my lips hovered at his ear, and whispered, “My name, is Sharden.” - Alysha Speer

29. “I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.” - Raymond Chandler

30. “A fish might more easily live on the apex of a rock than a man accustomed to crime live a life of virtue. (“The Story of Prince Barkiarokh”)” - William Beckford

31. “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” - Sophocles

32. “It was the American middle class. No one's house cost more than two or three year's salary, and I doubt the spread in annual wages (except for the osteopath) exceeded more than five thousand dollars. And other than the doctor (who made house calls), the store managers, the minister, the salesman, and the banker, everyone belonged to a union. That meant they worked a forty-hour week, had the entire weekend off (plus two to four weeks' paid vacation in the summer), comprehensive medical benefits, and job security. In return for all that, the country became the most productive in the world and in our little neighborhood it meant your furnace was always working, your kids could be dropped off at the neighbors without notice, you could run next door anytime to borrow a half-dozen eggs, and the doors to all the homes were never locked -- because who would need to steal anything if they already had all that they needed?” - Michael Francis Moore

33. “He's bound to have done something,” Nobby repeated.In this he was echoing the Patrician's view of crime and punishment. If there was crime, there should be punishment. If the specific criminal should be involved in the punishment process then this was a happy accident, but if not then any criminal would do, and since everyone was undoubtedly guilty of something, the net result was that, in general terms, justice was done.” - Terry Pratchett

34. “The security officer smiled and said, ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ to me before Igave him ID.”“It’s a sick world, Eve.” He resisted taking her hand for another squeeze. “A sick,sad world.” - J.D. Robb

35. “We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out the mouths of starving babes.” - H. Rider Haggard

36. “Parker looked distressed. He had confidence in Wimsey's judgment, and, in spite of his own interior certainty, he felt shaken."My dear man, where's the flaw in [this case]?""There isn't one ... There's nothing wrong about it at all, except that the girl's innocent.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

37. “but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not.” - G.K. Chesterton

38. “... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.” - Judith Lewis Herman

39. “A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.” - George R.R. Martin

40. “Practically every fella that breaks the law has a danged good reason, to his own way of thinking, which makes every case exceptional, not just one or two. Take you, for example.” - Jim Thompson

41. “Even sentenced to twenty-five years in prison Ted didn’t get what he deserved. Maybe his prison mates would give it to him.” - Suzie Ivy

42. “Listen, we got two stiffs and a river of red in a villa in Herne Bay...” - Rhys Chamberlain

43. “Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

44. “I don't have a command for 'stop wagging your tail'.” - Elle Saverini

45. “It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.” - Arthur Conan Doyle

46. “There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.” - Arthur Conan Doyle

47. “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

48. “Love enters later in life through the cracks left by the first heartbreak.” - D. Biswas

49. “They only asked for punishments that fitted their crimes. Not ones that came like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. Not ones you spent your whole life in, wandering through its maze of shelves.” - Arundhati Roy

50. “These kids are already hard. They don't need to be made harder. The issue is softening them up. They need to learn how to care about life again. They've lost that. That's what we need to give back to them.” - Edward Humes

51. “Locking everyone up is not the solution,' she sighs, staring into a cup of coffee gone cold as The Box at Juvenile Hall. 'It's just the symptom of the problem. It's the proof that we're doing something wrong.” - Edward Humes

52. “Rape is a more heinous crime than murder since the rape victim dies throughout the period she lives.” - Amit Abraham

53. “In the world union, prosperity is a science, self-interest a new religion, peace is at hand and the future has never looked brighter.” - B. Barmanbek

54. “She liked who she was becoming, despite the pain and frustration it brought.” - B. Barmanbek

55. “In post-modern finance, everybody took a risk when lending or borrowing.” - B. Barmanbek

56. “It’s more like he was an ant in the land of elephants. Nobody would notice his presence, no matter how much noise he might make.” - B. Barmanbek

57. “The worst kind of victim was the kind that was aware of nothing.” - B. Barmanbek

58. “I’m just an apprentice, stuck between these borrowed first and last breaths that I was given, drinking water of life, and chasing the fire of knowledge, and waiting to mingle with my eternal and faithful love, earth.” - B. Barmanbek

59. “We thought we were invincible and Dominic proved us all wrong,” - Jesse Carlisle” - Nina D'Angelo

60. “A ignorância é a mãe de todos os crimes, porque um crime é, antes de mais, uma falta de raciocínio.” - Honoré de Balzac

61. “He's prowling back and forth like a lion with distemper now. There's a shiny streak down one side of his face. "I shouldn't have let her go ahead - I ought to be hung! Something's gone wrong. I can't stand this any more!" he says with a choked sound. "I'm starting now -" "But how are you -" "Spring for it and fire as I go if they try to stop me." And then as he barges out, the fat lady waddling solicitously after him, "Stay there; take it if she calls - tell her I'm on the way-" He plunges straight at the street-door from all the way back in the hall, like a fullback headed for a touchdown. That's the best way. Gun bedded in his pocket, but hand gripping it ready to let fly through lining and all. He slaps the door out of his way without slowing and skitters out along the building, head and shoulders defensively lowered.It *was* the taxi, you bet. No sound from it, at least not at this distance, just a thin bluish haze slowly spreading out around it that might be gas-fumes if its engine were turning; and at his end a long row of un-colored spurts - of dust and stone-splinters - following him along the wall of the flat he's tearing away from. Each succeeding one a half yard too far behind him, smacking into where he was a second ago. And they never catch up. ("Jane Brown's Body")” - Cornell Woolrich

62. “The struggle doesn't last long; it's too unequal. Their momentary surprise overcome, they close in on him. The well-directed slice of a gun-butt slackens the good arm; it's easy to pry the disabled one from around the racketeer's collar.Tereshko is trembling with his anger. 'Now him again!' he protests, as though at an injustice. 'All they do is die and then get up and walk around again! What'sa matter, you guys using spitballs for slugs? No, don't kick at him, that'll never do it - I think the guy has nine lives!' ("Jane Brown's Body")” - Cornell Woolrich

63. “Then Cynthia looked at him and smiled, and he knew he couldn’t possibly resist her, no matter what she had done. It felt as though the two of them had just stripped naked and dived off a high cliff over a beautiful river. The water below looked cool and inviting. But what if it was only six inches deep?” - Robert Burton Robinson

64. “Raging crime, class warfare, invasive immigrants, light morals, public misbehavior. Always we convince ourselves that the parade of unwelcome and despised is a new phenomenon, which is why the phrase "the good old days" has passed from cliché to self-parody.” - Anna Quindlen

65. “Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.” - Terry Pratchett

66. “...chance is sometimes a wonderful accomplice in crime.” - Émile Gaboriau

67. “The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.” - Mario Puzo

68. “From time to timeI once wondered how one wanders from time to timeAnd think up the paradox lineSpeak of Epoch's crimeOh I lied, it hasn't happened yetBut bet you better believe it's such a habit thatI just said that in a past mindset” - Criss Jami

69. “In the half-century of his life, a tick on the Doomsday clock, he had borne witness to the most unbelievable technological advances. He had started off listening to an old Bush radio in the corner of the living room and now he had a phone in his hand on which he could pretend to throw a scrunched-up piece of paper into a waste bin. The world had waited a long time for that.” - Kate Atkinson

70. “Issues are like tissues. You pull one out and another appears!” - Gary Goldstein

71. “Drug addicts driven to crime to finance their drug addiction are not often inclined toward violent crime. Violence requires all different kinds of energy, and most drug addicts like to expend their energy not on their professional crime but on what their professional crime lets them afford. Drug addicts are often burglars, therefore.” - David Foster Wallace

72. “Crime brings together honest men and concentrates them.” - Emile Durkheim

73. “Redemption is for the weak. The strong keep sinning” - Marvin Amazon

74. “...people demonize certain types of crime - it's a way of distancing ourselves from the monsters...” - John Geddes

75. “This may not be art as art commonly goes; the lack of discipline, of control, would seem to rule it out of that category. And yet Woolrich's lack of control over emotions is a crucial element in his work, not only because it intensifies the fragility and momentariness of love but also because it tears away the comfortable belief, evident in some of the greatest works of the human imagination such as Oedipus Rex, that nobility in the face of nothingness is possible. And if Woolrich's work is not art as commonly understood, there is an art beyond art, whose form is not the novel or story but the scream; and of this art Woolrich is beyond doubt a master. ("Introduction")” - Francis M. Nevins Jr.

76. “There is always a unique atmosphere in the car when you drive through the City with a dead body in the back.” - Steen Langstrup

77. “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

78. “Fine by me, Jack. I just have to plug in the machine. The City will have to change its name to Sunny Beach.”“We don’t have a beach.”“Well, you know what I mean …”Conversation on Radio Fake 112.8 MHzIn The Shadow of Sadd” - Steen Langstrup

79. “Jimmy Sadd is the most evil man I’ve ever known. I mean really evil. I’m not talking about tough, or cruel – all the bosses are tough and cruel. You’ll never get anywhere in our world if you’re not respected. But Jimmy ... God damn, Bruno, getting involved with Sadd ... I’d rather do a deal with the devil himself. Sadd is worse. You’ll never get out.”George HansonIn The Shadow of Sadd.” - Steen Langstrup

80. “Do you know a Psychopath?You do not know me; but after reading my memoir you will know me a little better and you will have had the experience of safely getting into the mind and life of a young psychopath in training.Critics have written: It is a powerful and unusual memoir; brutal and raw.A Psychopath In Training: In 1997 psychiatrist’s contracted by the Correctional Service and the National Parole Board wrote in their final report, before I was released back into the community, they had diagnosed me to be a psychopath.A Psychopath: How does one become a Psychopath?After of the death of my young mother, when I was fourteen, I became a ward of the state and forced into the care and custody of the Catholic Christian Brothers at St. John’s Catholic Training School for Boys until after I turned sixteen. Since then I have been incarcerated over seventeen years in various prisons, institutions and juvenile detention centres. I have been interviewed and treated by so many prison psychiatrists and psychologists I should be called the professional.In my youth I have experienced almost every kind of sleaze, sex and violence humans can inflict on each other. I had to learn the hard way on how to identify and deal with the people who were the dangerous psychopath’s in my life and the proof I succeeded is; I am still alive.My book cover depicts what is coming out of the government foster homes and prisons today: Our communities and our police forces are not at all prepared for the dangerous psychopaths being churned out. Are you ready? You and the educators alike can learn from my memoir.” - Michael A. Hodge

81. “It's odd to imagine, of course: you pass a car on a lonely rural highway; you sit beside a man in a diner and share views with him; you wait behind a customer checking into a motel, a friendly man with a winning smile and twinkling hazel eyes, who's happy to fill you in on his life's story and wants you to like him - odd to think this man is cruising around with a loaded pistol, making up his mind about which bank he'll soon rob.' - Richard Ford, Canada” - Richard Ford

82. “Saltei da quinta nuvem para o primeiro plano planejando revirarrevoltas e crimes contra os costumes.” - Filipe Russo

83. “Meet me tonight, six o’clock sharp, at the gates of the municipal hospital. It is very important that you are precise. Not five minutes early, not five minutes late. In case I’m not there, you leave straight away. Got it?”Ingrid aka ‘Alis K’The Informer” - Steen Langstrup

84. “If a deadly snake slithering around in a pre-school bit a child, would you box it up for a month as punishment, and then release it to prey upon the children once again?” - Edward M. Wolfe

85. “In addition, when a neighborhood's crime victims are portrayed as victims-sympathetically and without blame, as humans rather than as statistics-people living in other parts of the city are more inclined to support social services for the area, which in turn can reduce the crime rate.” - Barry Glassner