Home > Author > John Swartzwelder
1 " I made a circular motion with my finger around my temple to indicate I thought this guy was crazy, forgetting that there was no one in the room to see this circular motion except him. He saw it and frowned. "
― John Swartzwelder , The Time Machine Did It
2 " I try to maintain a positive attitude at all times, because clients notice little things like that, and if you're frowning and crying all the time and saying "why? why?", they get worried. "
3 " I'm 190 pounds of rock hard muscle, underneath 40 pounds of sturdy protective fat. "
4 " I was sleeping like a baby - waking up every three hours screaming and crapping my pants. "
5 " The guy who was punching me was a lot burlier than I was, so it hurt plenty. But I tried to pretend it didn't bother me at all, that I actually liked it. It was hard to do this convincingly, because he had kind of knocked the wind out of me there, so all I could do was smile and wink and give him the thumbs up while I waited to be able to breath again. He thought I was making fun of him and started punching me in the stomach harder. Meanwhile, I'm not any closer to getting my breath back. Some days are like that. "
6 " The next day, a dead turtle was left on my doorstep as a warning. I couldn’t figure out as a warning for what, and I guess whoever was watching me picked up on that, because the next morning there was another dead turtle, but this one had several sheets of paper glued to it’s back leg. The pieces of paper contained a long footnoted explanation of all the symbolism involved. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. The turtle was the “turtle of inquisitiveness” and the cheese smeared on it’s shell meant something, and the little cowboy boots on its feet meant something. Everything about this animal meant something apparently to whoever sent it. I still didn’t get what it was all about. The next morning there was no turtle. Somebody just shot at me from the bushes. "
7 " Kids have too much money these days, if you ask me. "
8 " It's tough to make a living in my racket. Most people who need detecting done just go to the cops. They're free. I have to charge money for essentially the same service. Another thing that makes it tough is that I'm not the best detective in town. In fact in this building you have to pass the offices of three detectives who are better than me to get to my place. So I guess I lose some business that way. "
9 " This guy was making me tired. “Thanks for the afternoon’s entertainment,” I said. “I’ll flush a copy of my bill down the toilet. You should be getting it in a couple of days. "
10 " I’ve been told by people that I’m shaped kind of like a garbage can, but I don’t know if that’s the truth, or just some kind of an insult. "
11 " I indicated that I had some free time at the moment and was willing to investigate what sounded like a most important case. “How much do you charge?” he asked. “$500 a day, plus expenses.” “Will the expenses make it less?” “Possibly, but in my experience expenses usually add to the total.” He thought about this for a moment, then frowned. “Well, I suppose I should just forget about it then. Spending $500 a day to find something worth $20 wouldn't make economic sense.” “That’s true, if it's just the money you're concerned with here and not the justice angle.” “No, it was the money more than anything else. I guess it would be cheaper to just buy another one. "
12 " He told me the crooks used this place for more than just a dumping ground for undesirables. He said they also had a lot of food stored here in case there was ever a nuclear war. That way they could insure that in the future there would still be criminals. "
13 " I'm 190 pounds of rock hard muscle, underneath 40 pounds of sturdy protective fat. It's important to have that layer of fat. You can't have guys hitting you in your muscles all the time. But that extra padding also cushions the blow for your opponent's fists, which allows him to slug you longer and with more abandon. So that layer of fat is both a good and a bad thing, I guess. It works both ways is what I'm saying. "
14 " I was just turning away to leave when I noticed a slight distortion in the air in the shape of a hole at the point where Blinky had disappeared. It was so faint you couldn’t see it if you were looking directly at it. You had to kind of catch it out of the corner of your eye. I put my hand in the middle of this distortion and not only did my hand vanish, but I could feel it being sucked down deeper into the hole. I yanked it out, after some effort. Then I put an eye to the hole. Same thing happened. What was going on here? I looked around, found a cat, and experimentally tossed it in. The cat disappeared, and moments later an ancient statue of the cat approving an important law appeared on the street nearby. "
― John Swartzwelder , The Last Detective Alive
15 " Now, I'm not the most observant of men, which is unfortunate, because I'm a private eye. "
16 " Any calls?” I asked. She didn’t look up from her magazine. “What am I, your secretary?” “Yes.” “Look, just leave me alone. "
17 " Everybody loves a good car chase. There’s something in it for everyone: plenty of high-speed action, lots of crashes and explosions, romance possibly, and all the property damage you could reasonably want. And nobody ever seems to get seriously hurt. I lost track of how many times a cop car behind me crashed and burned and all I could hear back there was: “Are you okay?” and “Of course I’m okay.” And whenever I crashed my truck I yelled out that I was okay too. It’s what you’re supposed to do, but it’s not really necessary. Everybody knows you’re all right. It’s a car chase. Being in a car chase is like playing a video game, only safer. "
― John Swartzwelder , Detective Made Easy
18 " I try to maintain a positive attitude at all times, because clients notice little things like that, and if you’re frowning and crying all the time and saying “why? why?”, they get worried. So I try to stay upbeat. "
19 " As my exciting story opens, I am being punched in the stomach. But I guess a lot of stories start that way. "
20 " Lisa: Well, where's my Dad?Professor Frink: Well, that should be obvious to even the most dimwitted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology that Homer Simpson has stumbled into...the third dimension. "
― John Swartzwelder
