Ruth Rendell Mysteries

Sarah Quin:
[Flirtatiously] I wanted to experience everything new.

Michael Quin:
And now?

Sarah Quin:
Now I want the best one: your baby!

Chief Inspector Moore:
The governor's just informed me that the Home Office is threatening to bring the Yard in to take over the inquiry.

Inspector Masters:
[Groans] Yes?

Chief Inspector Moore:
We've now got two ticking clocks against us - "when will he kill again?" and "when are we off the job?".

Sergeant Holt:
He just didn't kill women, I bet!

Inspector Masters:
No, our jack-o-lantern, he's doing that for pleasure.

[talking about Sarah Quin and Joseph who used to fancy her when they were teenagers]

Farmer:
You knew she'd work someone up into a real passion one day. Joseph carried a *real* torch for her.

Inspector Masters:
But not Eddie?

Farmer:
No. He was just a simple lad. He wouldn't have harmed a fly. But Joseph: the only way that lad got through the winter was thinking about her coming down during the summer.

Inspector Masters:
Did she like him?

Farmer:
She liked both the lads, but she weren't about to get hitched up at sixteen year old.

Inspector Masters:
Is Joseph still around?

Farmer:
Went away. Made a bit of a fool of his-self over Sarah. Got ragged about it. Couldn't take it. Well it weren't Sarah's fault. What he couldn't understand was that her coming here was just *one* thing that happened in her life, but she was the *only* thing that happened in his.

[to Sergeant Holt about Sarah Quin and her husband]

Inspector Masters:
I think she did paint her nails when she wasn't with him.

Bill:
[sighs in bed looking at alarm clock anticipating a ring that doesn't come] I remember not to set the clock, but how do I turn off th alarm in my mind, Liz? [She doesn't hear him and remains asleep]

Sheila:
[to herself as she walks away from Mark] Lovely story but I don't believe a word of it! There's something not quite right about you, Mr. Roberts!

Sarah:
What's going on, Mother?

Liz:
I'm having an affair, that's all.

Sarah:
[referring to her father] He's only been dead two months!

Liz:
My only regret is that I didn't have an affair while he was still alive.

Liz:
[to Sheila] Why didn't you become one of those foul tabloid journalists? Even that would have required a certain talent1 You're a cow, Shiela, a nasty poisonous cow who lives on gossip and other people's misery! Phew! I've been dying to say that for years!

Hotel Maitre D':
[Condescendingly] Will there be anything else, sir?

Nicholas Hawthorne:
[Bitterly, referring to the dozing Annabel] Yes, I'd like to call this lady a taxi, among other things!

Det. Sgt. Khan:
[Referring to the murder] It doesn't look random, does it?

Det. Insp. Macarthy:
Not in a million years!

Julius Sorensen:
Whatever you think of me, it's no worse than I think of myself!

Annabel Lynes:
[Contemptuously to Julius] You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and the best you can do is choke on it!

Hugh Branksome:
Why do people think builders enjoy building?

Hugh Branksome:
[Angrily] Go to Hell, Cottle!

Arnold Cottle:
[Jauntily] See you there, Matey.

Hugh Branksome:
You can't hang a man for being an artist. You can only hang his paintings.

Arnold Cottle:
[Talking about his unsubtle romantic advances to Cecil] Look, the mam sa'b and I are going great guns.

Hugh Branksome:
How much do you want to keep away from her?

Arnold Cottle:
[Moving away from the car so Cecily won't hear] Come 'ere. Look, there's something you ought to know. I had Cecie's knickers off regular before you even got to her bra strap. You alway's had a second hand bite, Mate.

Hugh Branksome:
[Furious at the remark, he tries to hit Cottle, who counters and punches Hugh in the stomach, doubling him up with pain] Unh!

Arnold Cottle:
[Walking back into the car] Now let that be a lesson to you, and don't try it again. All right?

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
Stephen Devenish is the most faithful husband on earth. He loves his wife - she's the one woman he can beat to a pulp.

[quoting from a poison-pen letter]

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
"Dear Mr Devenish. I wonder if you know what a monster you are. A psychopath, not a human being at all. Evil like yours is, in fact, quite rare. Thank God. But God won't have his revenge on you till after you have died. So he has appointed me to carry out retribution. I shall kill you! I will make your wife a widow and your children orphans, and laugh for joy." No signature. Funny, isn't it, how even the writers of hate mail use a term of endearment: *Dear* Mr Devenish.

D.I. Burden:
It doesn't matter what a girl looks like or how simple she is... Yes, all right, don't look at me like that. You know what I mean... or shy... or whatever. The instinct in young human beings to reproduce is so powerful, the most unlikely ones get it together. It's like magnets.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
[Wryly] Well, I wouldn't remember.

Tommy Smith:
You think the same as those out thee, don't you? Just a filthy old pedo pervert who molests children. Well, I'm not. I just admired and dsired, and there beauty took my breath away.

Suzanne Smith:
[after a quick cutaway to the face of a young boy] Admired? You killed a twelve year old boy, Dad!

Tommy Smith:
It was an accident.

Suzanne Smith:
[Emotionally] Go to Hell!

Suzanne Smith:
[Rhetorically, to Wexford] Isn't it a shame that only the good die young?

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
[Angrily, to Burden] Don't teach me how to suck eggs, Mike!

Tommy Smith:
Why can't they just leave us be?

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
[Dryly] I think you know the answer to that.

Stephen Devenish:
[to Wexford] My wife and I don't need friends. We've got each other.

Gillian Ferry:
[to Wexgford] To murder someone you need fire in your belly, and Trevor's fire is out.

Gillian Ferry:
[to Wexford] Love can really make you hate!

D.I. Burden:
[to Wexford] Reg, you're allowed to be human after thirty-odd years confronting the darker side of human nature.

Stephen Whalby:
I read somewhere that something isn't real until it passes through our imagination.

Lyn Whalby:
I'm 25. I've lived with my husband for four years, so I must be married.

Dadda Whalby:
There ia within us all a terrible violence.

Lyn Whalby:
I wish it hadn't been you that found the body.

Stephen Whalby:
So do I.

Lyn Whalby:
Stay aay from the moors, Stephen.

Stephen Whalby:
I can't. You know I can't!

Lyn Whalby:
Jam sandwiches. situations like this always call for jam sandwiches.

June Symonds:
[Gazing at her husband's corpse in the morgue] He looks just like a waxwork.

Mortuary Attendant:
A lot of people say that.

William Symonds:
I'm surprised that someone with so sweet a voice can sound so stern.

May Thrace:
[Coldly referring to the orphans] They have to know where they stand.

May Thrace:
[Talking to her mother about William] I'd crawl back on my hands and knees if that's what he wanted.

Mrs. Thrace:
[to May] No man's worth takin' your life for!

May Thrace:
[Cattily, to June] They say people become acquisitive when they have something missing in their lives. I'm sure no one could say that about you.

Margaret Lipton:
[Cattily about May] Not every woman over 40 can metamorphosize so successfully.

May Thrace:
[Cattily to John] She's in the bedroom. I think you know where that is.

D.C.I. Reg Wexford:
[Distraught over Dora's disappearance] She must be dead!

Dora Wexford:
It was as blue as the patch on a Dutch boy's breeches.

Owen Struther:
[Disparagingly to Wexford] Oh, little man! Little man! I'm a good judge of men and you're a very small man, Inspector!

Pub Landlord:
What do you take me for?

Det. Insp. Burden:
[Contemptuously] A lot of things, Mr. Dixon, and none of them very nice!

Det. Insp. Burden:
Nothing like the truth to scare a man.

[looking at a run-down block of flats]

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
Half of them are empty. The council's saving up to blow them up.

Det. Insp. Mike Burden:
If Mrs Khoori gets elected they're going to have an explosion sponsored by the Crescent supermarket.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
If the BNP get in they're going to leave the people in and then blow it up.

Det. Insp. Mike Burden:
Dr. Akand telephoned

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
Akand-e

Det. Insp. Mike Burden:
I like doctors best when they're called Finlay and Cameron

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
I think that may be racist

Det. Insp. Mike Burden:
What?

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
Preferring your doctors Scottish to Nigerian

Det. Insp. Mike Burden:
I'm not racist. All Scotsmen look the same to me

Dr. Raymond Akande:
[to Wexford] In my profession when people start to say it's nothing, it occasionally turns out to be something.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
What did you think of our chairperson?

DS Karen Malahyde:
The more she tries to impress, the less I'm impressed.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
If I was having an affair, how long would it take you to guess?

Sylvia Wexford:
Ten minutes... fifteen if you were clever. Let's say ten.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
Where have I seen that car before?

Det. Insp. Mike Burden:
In your worst nightmare.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
[to Burden] Right. well now, it's 90% investigation and 10% intuition. I rely on my 10%.

DS Karen Malahyde:
Did your mother suspect any of what was going on?

Susan Riding:
Women have a great gift for looking the other way. We've been doing it for centuries.

Robin:
I've decided that all European languages are really, really boring.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
[Tongue in cheek] Oh, I'll inform Tolstoy, Balzac, and Shakespeare immediately.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
May I remind you this conversation's being recorded.

Carolyn Snow:
[Contemptuously] Bring out the album!

Ingrid Pamber:
[looking in awe at the interior of the Khoori mansion] Isn't it a wonderful house?

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
Yes, beautiful! Built by the poor for the rich. Maintained by the poor for the rich. It says money and privilege. Absolutely demands respect!

Ingrid Pamber:
What's the use of having money if you don't flaunt it?

Mavrikiev:
[Understating sfter autopsying the beaten dead girl] Whoever did this is not a nice man.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
Who was it that said everyone has their 15 minutes of fame in their life?

DS Martin:
I don't know, sir. Bob Monkhouse?

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
My God, I've been a fool!

Dr. Len Crocker:
I've been telling you that for years Reg

Det. Insp. Mike Burden:
He's lying isn't he.

Det. Chief Insp. Reg Wexford:
The lies are queueing up behind his teeth!

Peter Milton:
I want you. you're the one I want, not her.

Lisa:
[as Zoe] What's the difference?

Peter Milton:
She's just a girl. You're a woman.

Peter Milton:
I live in a dark and dirty world of the wiciked. [Pointing to Zoe] Your world!

Peter Milton:
Zoe, wait. Could we, um, meet or something?

Lisa:
[as Zoe, clucking her tongue] You're a married man, Peter... near enough. What is it they say? Don't get involved with married men. But you'd like to see me?

Peter Milton:
Yes.

Lisa:
[as Zoe, flirtatiously ] Might be dangerous.

Peter Milton:
So?

Lisa:
[as Zoe] I see. Tomorrow night soon enough? [Handing him a card] Eight o'clock at my place. You bring the booze.

Peter Milton:
It's a deal.

Lisa:
[as Zoe] Yeah, that's right. That's what it is. It's a deal.

Mrs Parks:
[to police about her missing child] I don't know whose fault it is, but it's someone's fault.

William Newton:
[to Guy] You're not stupid, so obviously you're being perverse.

Danny Danilo:
[Referring to cocaine] Powder to the people!

Martin Urban:
[to Francesca] You shouldn't look like that if you don't like compliments.

Jenny:
[Last lines as narrator/protagonist] 'Children should be seen and not heard.' That's what Mrs. Thorn would say.

Bob North:
[to Susan] I was going to drive somewhere just to get away, and then I remembered I have no place to go.

Rosamund:
I got to get away from my mum. It's like livin' with the dead!

Rosamund:
The great thing about this arrangement is that I can come and go as I please, can't I?