Jacqueline Kirby Quotes

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General

  • The cat blinked again. Its expression was one of concentrated contempt.
    – The Seventh Sinner, p. 37.
  • “…do you know why the detective doesn’t tell until the last chapter? So he won’t make a fool of himself in case he’s wrong.”
    – Jacqueline, The Murders of Richard III, p. 174
  • “The real reason Holmes never told Watson what he was thinking is because he didn’t have the solution figured out yet.”
    – Jacqueline, Die for Love, p. 161
  • “Still reading murder mysteries? What low taste.”
    – Jean, The Seventh Sinner, p. 111
  • You didn’t get ideas. You smelled them out, tracked them down, wrestled them into submission; you pursued them with forks and hope, and if you were lucky enough to catch one you impaled it, with the forks, before the sneaky little devil could get away.
     Naked Once More, p. 170
  • For sheer bloody-mindedness and vicious power struggles, not the Mafia, not even the bureaucracy in Washington, could hold a candle to publishing.
    – Naked Once More, p.27
  • “There is no happier outlet for our inherent aggressive instincts than the belligerent support of an unorthodox cause.”
    – Jacqueline, The Murders of Richard III, p. 16

The Librarian

  • “You don’t sound like a librarian,” she said.
    “I’m on vacation.” Jacqueline laughed.
    – The Seventh Sinner, p. 34.
  • “A librarian is a hanger-on around the fringes of the scholarly world. ”
    – Jacqueline, The Seventh Sinner, p. 232
  • “Once a librarian, always a librarian.”
    – Jacqueline, The Seventh Sinner, p. 164; and The Murders of Richard III, p. 15

On Smoking

  • I have kicked the habit nine times since you saw me last.
    – The Murders of Richard III, p. 7
  • Heaven, Jacqueline thought, is a place where you can smoke and not get lung cancer.
    – Naked Once More, p. 166
  • “I quit smoking once a month.”
    – Jacqueline, Die for Love, p. 18

On Jacqueline’s Purse:

  • A shapeless white lump, it looked alarmingly like the hideously animated leather bag that haunts one of M.R. James’s most effective ghost stories, Jean kept expecting it to shoot out tiny whithered arms and grab someone’s ankles.
    – Jean, ruminating on Jacqueline’s purse, The Seventh Sinner, p. 15
  • [It tends] to bulge oddly, and no one, including Jacqueline, was ever entirely certain what was inside…
    – Die for Love, p. 12
  • “Your students claim that it’s magic. That you can produce anything you want out of it.”
    – Thomas, The Murders of Richard III, p. 26
  • “It’s a very effective weapon…I prowl the campus by night, hoping to be attacked by muggers.”
    – Jacqueline, The Murders of Richard III, p. 26