“
When we stay locked up in the spectrum of unsolved life stories and keep hiding in an arcane prism, life remains a mystery behind perpetual tensions and a journey in a world beyond appearances. (“Une femme peut en cacher une autre")
”
”
Erik Pevernagie
“
Those of you who are more than casually familiar with books -- those of you who spend your free afternoons in fusty bookshops, who offer furtive, kindly strokes along the spines of familiar titles -- understand that page riffling is an essential element in the process of introducing oneself to a new book. It isn't about reading the words; it's about reading the smell, which wafts from the pages in a cloud of dust and wood pulp. It might smell expensive and well bound, or it might smell of tissue-thin paper and blurred two-colour prints, or of fifty years unread in the home of a tobacco-smoking old man. Books can smell of cheap thrills or painstaking scholarship, or literary weight or unsolved mysteries.
”
”
Alix E. Harrow (The Ten Thousand Doors of January)
“
I felt luxuriously involved in an unsolvable mystery, my favorite way to feel.
”
”
Eve Babitz (Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.)
“
When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten dead bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island.
”
”
Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None)
“
Life itself is an unsolved mystery", said the clergyman gravely.
”
”
Agatha Christie
“
there would be no powerful will binding hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature…And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.
”
”
Kate Chopin (The Story of an Hour)
“
How the hell do I know what pisses a woman off?...Nobody knows because it can be any damn thing. It's an unsolved mystery. And the next day, that any damn thing is fine, and it's some other damn thing. No man knows.
”
”
Nora Roberts (The Last Boyfriend (Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy, #2))
“
Every man is a mystery to himself. And then we die, unsolved.
”
”
John Farris
“
Madness is loving the unsolvable puzzle of your soul and replacing the lost pieces with my own.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
There are many mysteries I have never solved, and the hair of my chaperone is perhaps my most curious unsolved case.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (When Did You See Her Last? (All the Wrong Questions, #2))
“
What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering.
”
”
Kate Chopin
“
In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.
”
”
Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
“
He still could not understand why he had nothing, and would never have anything, and there was no one who knew and who could tell him. It was the unsolved mystery of his life.
”
”
Erskine Caldwell (Tobacco Road)
“
Books can smell of cheap thrills or painstaking scholarship, of literary weight or unsolved mysteries.
”
”
Alix E. Harrow (The Ten Thousand Doors of January)
“
My thing is a Mystery and not just a Mystery, but Bermuda--no sun, only Triangle. Unknowable. Unsolvable.
”
”
Maria Dahvana Headley (Magonia (Magonia, #1))
“
It really confirmed for me that inside everyone lurks a Sherlock Holmes that believes that given the right amount of clues they could solve a mystery. If the challenge here, or perceived weakness, is that the unsolved aspect will leave readers unfulfilled, why not turn that on its head and use it as a strength?
”
”
Michelle McNamara (I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer)
“
Have you ever heard of anybody buying a vacuum cleaner at a vacuum cleaner store?" "One of the unsolved mysteries of the universe," Packard adds.
”
”
Carolyn Crane (Double Cross (The Disillusionists, #2))
“
Who doesn’t love a mystery solved? It creates order from disorder, salves our ache for moral balance. An unsolved mystery is like a stone in your shoe.
”
”
Mark Bowden
“
What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
”
”
Kate Chopin (The Story of an Hour)
“
And this tattooing, had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
He had too much cat in his blood - a deep-rooted feline twitch that would travel the length of his nerves to tickle his mind at the faintest sign of a mystery, no matter how small. He could no more let a riddle go unsolved than he could pass by the perfect length of colourful wire without picking it up.
”
”
Charles de Lint (Widdershins (Newford, #11))
“
It seems to me that part of the true function of a mystery is precisely that it remains unsolved. The world would be far too neat a place if the things that puzzled us were always, eventually, explained. We need unanswered questions at the edges of our lives. In fact, I’d go further. It’s important not to think we can understand everything. Not to understand. The humility that can come from that. The wonder.
”
”
Rupert Thomson (Divided Kingdom)
“
Every word she uttered set fire in me, and I was falling for her. I started wanting her, and I didn’t know what kind of sign it was. She was a secret covered with skin, and her eyes were flitting to and from my heart. She was the enigma whose beauty lay in the mystery, the one you would rather leave unsolved.
”
”
Kavipriya Moorthy (Dirty Martini)
“
Thinking back, I don’t know how anyone else who grew up when I did didn’t become obsessed with true crime. The ’80s practically forced it down our throats in the name of TV ratings. There isn’t one person my age who doesn’t still get the chills when they hear the gravelly, soothing voice of Robert Stack or hear the creepy theme song from Unsolved Mysteries.
”
”
Karen Kilgariff (Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide)
“
Her hair came first, a wild tangle as if several heads of hair were having a wrestling match, and the rest of her followed, frowning and tall. There are many mysteries I have never solved, and the hair of my chaperone is perhaps my most curious unsolved case.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (When Did You See Her Last? (All the Wrong Questions, #2))
“
We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it's an impulse to return to what is felt by the body -- what is authentic, what is archaic -- and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling.
And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That's what the world is. The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery: our birth, our death, our being in the moment -- these are mysteries. They are doorways opening on to unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment and hope for the human enterprise. And our culture has killed that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy products and shoddier ideals. We have to get away from that; and the way to get away from it is by a return to the authentic experience of the body -- and that means sexually empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded, exploring the mind as a tool for personal and social transformation.
The hour is late; the clock is ticking; we will be judged very harshly if we fumble the ball. We are the inheritors of millions and millions of years of successfully lived lives and successful adaptations to changing conditions in the natural world. Now the challenge passes to us, the living, that the yet-to-be-born may have a place to put their feet and a sky to walk under; and that's what the psychedelic experience is about, is caring for, empowering, and building a future that honours the past, honours the planet and honours the power of the human imagination. There is nothing as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet, as the human imagination. Let's not sell it straight. Let's not whore ourselves to nitwit ideologies. Let's not give our control over to the least among us. Rather, you know, claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination. Thank you very, very much.
”
”
Terence McKenna (The Archaic Revival)
“
Like it or not, after Freud, no one had to read Sophocles to know something about Oedipus.
”
”
Paul Aron (Unsolved Mysteries of History: An Eye-Opening Investigation Into the Most Baffling Events of All Time)
“
Good-bye to the past, with its mysteries which would never be fully unfolded.
”
”
Iris Murdoch (The Sacred and Profane Love Machine)
“
The mystery of Hitler's monkeys remains unsolved.
”
”
Ben Macintyre (Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory)
“
No combination of Time and Luck could have produced a camera that excellent, not even if the quantity of time had been 1,000,000,000,000 years! How is that for an unsolved mystery?
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Hocus Pocus)
“
Unsolved mysteries, especially those that linger from childhood, just stick with you.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Fourteen Days)
“
You only get one life. And before you know it, it’ll be over. You’ll go to sleep one day in your twenties, then wake up in your fifties. The purpose of life isn’t to sit around waiting for something to happen on a wing and prayer; you have to make it happen. You can spend your whole life searching for unsolved mysteries or waiting for someone to fall in love with you, but at the end of your life you’ll realize you’ve wasted your time. You’ve missed all of the beauty in the world in search of a vague dream or an answer to a question that has none. The purpose of life isn’t to wait for things to fall into your lap. The purpose of life is to live.
”
”
Brent Saltzman (The Lost World: A Retelling)
“
In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.
”
”
Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
“
What is it about an unsolved mystery...that captures us so. that makes us lean forward. looking for an answer? Is it just the challenge of cracking it ourselves or do we rather hope that it will never be solved? Because in solving something, in pinning it down,in reducing it to one reality, something of the magic is lost. Don't we all hope, even the fiercest realists among us, that there is another answer that transcends our understanding? A heaven above us, after all.
”
”
Kate Weinberg (The Truants)
“
Scientifically speaking, though, we still do not really understand why we dream—not in the way we understand why we breathe, eat, and have sex. It remains, as the journal Science noted in its 125th anniversary issue, one of nature’s great unsolved mysteries.
”
”
Rahul Jandial (Life Lessons From A Brain Surgeon: Practical Strategies for Peak Health and Performance)
“
The ancient writer Suetonius tells the story that an inventor around 70 CE displayed to a Roman emperor a machine that could move columns, only to be dismissed with the objection that such labor-saving devices would cause the poor to starve by robbing them of employment.
”
”
Joel Levy (Unsolved Mysteries Bizarre Events That Have Puzzled the Greatest Minds)
“
Any good photo is a secret of a secret. It's the unknowable glimpsed within a glimpse, the puzzle in plain sight. It's the question that makes us look for an answer we're never going to find. An open case. An unsolved mystery. A good still is never still - it's restive, alive.
”
”
Alison MacLeod (Tenderness)
“
A leaf of a story book has two sides. If you want to understand the full story, you CANNOT read just one side of that leaf. So it is with us, you CANNOT listen to just one side of a dispute between individuals. You won't get to uncover the real truth. It'll be an unsolved mystery.
”
”
Marcia M. Edwards (My Faith Saved Me)
“
It is another unsolved mystery in a world full of unsolved mysteries.Now stand up and walk out the way you came, and the moment that fresh air caresses your face, you will realize that that is what makes the world so beautiful. All those unsolved mysteries. And you won't ever want to interfere with that beauty again.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Radleys)
“
What unsolved mysteries, what unwritten tragedies, what romance, what treasure of gold that vast North must hold! For a thousand, perhaps a million centuries, it had lain thus undisturbed in the embrace of nature; few white men had broken its solitudes, and the wild things still lived there as they had lived in the winters of ages and ages ago.
”
”
James Oliver Curwood (The Wolf Hunters)
“
What had come from that? All this? Surely not? Life had to be more than a series of unsolvable mysteries. Surely we were entitled to some fuckin answers.
”
”
Irvine Welsh
“
Serial killers may stand apart from society, but they are able to blend in even better than 'normal' people as they are camoflaged in contemporary anonymity.
”
”
Kurt Jensen (Murder Mysteries: True, Horrific, and Unsolved Murder Cases (True & Puzzling Stories Book 1))
“
A missing girl is missing only to the people who notice.
”
”
Robert P. Kolker (Lost Girls: An American Mystery: An Examination of the Lives of the Victims of the Gilgo Beach Serial Killer – Explore the Story Behind the Case as the Trial Unfolds)
“
die doing something you love is not the worst thing in this life. There are no guarantees.
”
”
Outside Magazine (The Darkest Places: Unsolved Mysteries, True Crimes, and Harrowing Disasters in the Wild)
“
our subjective sense of time sits at the center of a perfect storm of unsolved scientific mysteries: consciousness, free will, relativity, quantum mechanics, and the nature of time.2
”
”
Annaka Harris (Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind)
“
In 1597, financially, physically, and spiritually exhausted , de Berrio (Don Antonio de Berrio) passed away with the bitter epitaph, 'If you try to do too much you will end by doing nothing at all.
”
”
Joel Levy (Unsolved Mysteries Bizarre Events That Have Puzzled the Greatest Minds)
“
We cannot look at history and expect our contemporary perceptions to apply. His-story is a male sport, the story of men, as told by men through the ages. Women figure in it simply to patch the silent phrases. But there is an uncanny resemblance between rituals of forgotten history and the reign of the feminine unconscious. Harem cannot be explained simply through the mirror of history. Harem is a unique archetype of the collective unconscious—matriarchy incubating in the cradle of patriarchy. It is an unsolved enigma, a haunting mystery, and undeniably a source of intuitive intelligence.
”
”
Alev Lytle Croutier (Harem: The World Behind the Veil)
“
It was probable that the widow knew more than others suspected of insanity in the Buchenau family, for there was an unsolved mystery lying half a century in the past, when Clara’s uncle Hugo, a darkly moody man, had shot himself in an orchard one May morning, scattering his brains among the blossoms, and soon after, Clara’s father had sunk into a deep depression and had at last to be taken to Mendota as insane, and there died.
”
”
August Derleth (Walden West (A North Coast Book))
“
the bears carried her into the woods, thinking they were protecting her. True or not, that’s a nice way to think of Kay’s end, her bears spiriting her body away into the wild. After half a lifetime of strife, she deserved some peace.
”
”
Outside Magazine (The Darkest Places: Unsolved Mysteries, True Crimes, and Harrowing Disasters in the Wild)
“
Then, I saw it—a golden calf exposed as a false idol by two variants of the same goddess-forsaken curse. A bull burned in a fire, ground to powder, and scattered on the sea as she watched with her knees sunk in the blood-stained sand of the seashore.
”
”
Amalia Rose (Decoded (The Ex-Files - Unsolved Mysteries Investigations Book 1))
“
Bastian shrank back, overwhelmed and unmoored, his earlier bravado depleted by the relentless onslaught of weirdness. “Hang on just one godforsaken minute,” he protested weakly. “You’re seriously asking me to trippy science my way into some kind of Minoan mind-meld? On the say-so of a rogue AI with delusions of godhood?
”
”
Amalia Rose (Decoded (The Ex-Files - Unsolved Mysteries Investigations Book 1))
“
There was something compelling about him. And it was more than the tall, dark and handsome thing he had going for him, or the adorable dog who followed him around.
It was the eyes, she realized. The way they'd fixed on her, given her one hundred percent of his attention. A psychologist's trick, surely, but it had felt personal.
”
”
Elizabeth Heiter (K-9 Cold Case (K-9 Alaska #3; Unsolved Mystery #3))
“
There will be unapologetic uses of generic types, actors with duplicating roles. Anachronisms, false starts, scarlet clues, a noirish insistence on the pathetic pursuit of human truths will pervade its miserable (quite thin) plot, and while the mystery will seem unsolved, to some it will provide the satisfaction of unrelieved despair.
”
”
Gina Apostol (Insurrecto)
“
I need to believe that there is more to this world than what we know. I need to believe there is magic out there. I cannot believe these things blindly, though, and maybe that is why I had to do this mission—to prove to myself that we can do things which are bigger than ourselves. I needed to walk through a minefield to feel protected.
”
”
Outside Magazine (The Darkest Places: Unsolved Mysteries, True Crimes, and Harrowing Disasters in the Wild)
“
One of the most curious of these stories about Pauli concerns the number 137. One of the great unsolved mysteries of modern physics is the value of the fine structure constant, for while the other fundamental constants of nature are all immensely small or enormously large, this fine structure constant 1/137 turns out to be a human-sized number. This number 137 and its place in the scale of the universe particularly puzzled Pauli and continues to challenge physicists today. I was a mystery that Pauli was to take to his death, for on being admitted into the hospital, the physicist was told that he was being put into room 137. According to one version of this story on learning of his room number, Pauli said, "I will never get out of here." The physicist died shortly after.
”
”
F. David Peat (Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind)
“
The winter was harsh. Kay had been spending days in her trailer hunkered down under piles of blankets—some even say with an older bear named Betty Sue. Her skin was turning gray, which could suggest emphysema, pneumonia, or a pending heart attack. The fact that her outerwear was found untorn could also suggest hypothermia, which sometimes makes victims feel like they’re burning up. Hopkins told me that Kay probably collapsed while walking back to her home. He said it’s even possible that
”
”
Outside Magazine (The Darkest Places: Unsolved Mysteries, True Crimes, and Harrowing Disasters in the Wild)
“
He leaned forward, his voice softening. “I get that representation, identity, and history are important, but when you hold on too tightly to something, any fault becomes a fault line, the very thing the world will use to bring you down.” He paused, his gaze shifting between Regina and me. “Whatever happens in this archaeological battle of sexes, the fact remains that the world is unfair, and I give you my word that history, whatever it may be, won’t stop me from being your ally and trying to fix, not the past we can’t control, but the present.
”
”
Amalia Rose (Decoded (The Ex-Files - Unsolved Mysteries Investigations Book 1))
“
The irresistible locked room mystery of the matter is what keeps us coming back to it. In 300 years, we have not adequately penetrated 9 months of Massachusetts history. If we knew more about Salem, we might attend to it less, a conundrum that touches on something of what propelled the witch panic in the first place. Things disturb us in the night. Sometimes they are our consciences. Sometimes they are our secrets. Sometimes they are our fears, translated from one idiom to another. Often what pinches and pricks, Nas, claws, stabs, and suffocates, like a 17th century which, is the irritatingly unsolved puzzle in the next room.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (The Witches: Salem, 1692)
“
The Papacy was not happy when Columbus relentlessly began petitioning the royals of Spain and England for their favor, seeking funds for Western expeditions. At first they tried to dissuade him but later, fearing he would find patronage and proceed with his venture, they conceded and financially backed his journey of discovery, making sure to put henchmen all about him to watch his every move. They knew, all too well, that America had already been colonized by Scots-Irish mariners and that the far away country contained Irish Stellar temples and Megalithic sites filled with treasure. They had their minds set on pillaging this wealth and making sure the relics of Ireland’s presence in the New World would be attributed to, and regarded as, yet another “unsolvable mystery.” Nowadays, however, when underground chambers of places such as Ohio’s “Serpent Mound” are excavated, all manner of Irish artifacts are brought out. The aboriginal tribes of South and North America were initially elated to see men such as Columbus and Pizarro. They erroneously believed them to be the godmen of old returning to their shores. They could not imagine, not even in their wildest dreams or visions, what kind of mayhem and destruction these particular “gods” were preparing to unleash upon them. According to Conor MacDari, there are thousands of Megalithic sites throughout America of Irish origin. In the state of Ohio there are over five thousand such mounds while in Michigan and Wisconsin there exists over ten thousand sites. None of these sites are of Native Indian origin and, therefore, little academic attention is paid to them. The Native Indians admit that in all cases except two, tribes understood a common language known as Algonquin. This word is Gaelic and means “noble family” or “noble ones.” Hubert Howe Bancroft, in his book Native Races mentions an Indian chief who said his tribe taught their children but one language until they reached eleven years of age, and that language was Irish Gaelic.
”
”
Michael Tsarion (The Irish Origins of Civilization, Volume One: The Servants of Truth: Druidic Traditions & Influence Explored)
“
But even in Gavle I went on digging into the case."
"I don't suppose that Henrik would ever let up."
"That's true, but that's not the reason. The puzzle about Harriet still fascinates me to this day. I mean... it's like this: every police officer has his own unsolved mystery. I remember from my days in Hedestad how older colleagues would talk in the canteen about the case of Rebecka. There was one officer in particular, a man named Torstensson - he's been dead for years - who year after year kept returning to that case. In his free time and when he was on holiday. Whenever there was a period of calm among the local hooligans he would take out those folders and study them."
"Was that also a case about a missing girl?"
Morell looked surprised. Then he smiled when he realised that Blomkvist was looking for some sort of connection.
"No, that's not why I mentioned it. I'm talking about the soul of a policeman. The Rebecka case was something that happened before Harriet Vanger was even born, and the statute of limitations has long since run out. Sometime in the forties a woman was assaulted in Hedestad, raped, and murdered. That's not altogether uncommon. Every officer, at some point in his career, has to investigate that kind of crime, but what I'm talking about are those cases that stay with you and get under your skin during the investigation. This girl was killed in the most brutal way. The killer tied her up and stuck her head into the smouldering embers of a fireplace. One can only guess how long it took for the poor girl to die, or what torment she must have endured."
"Christ Almighty."
"Exactly. It was so sadistic. Poor Torstensson was the first detective on the scene after she was found. And the murder remained unsolved, even though experts were called in from Stockholm. He could never let go of that case."
"I can understand that."
"My Rebecka case was Harriet. In this instance we don't even know how she died. We can't even prove that a murder was committed. But I have never been able to let it go." He paused to think for a moment. "Being a homicide detective can be the loneliest job in the world. The friends of the victim are upset and in despair, but sooner or later - after weeks or months - they go back to their everyday lives. For the closest family it takes longer, but for the most part, to some degree, they too get over their grieving and despair. Life has to go on; it does go on. But the unsolved murders keep gnawing away and in the end there's only one person left who thinks night and day about the victim: it's the officer who's left with the investigation.
”
”
Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1))
“
If women do not find a male attractive, he is simply not offering them enough genetic value; his behavior is unattractive, and he can only become attractive by improving his behavior to become more masculine and thus in fact more valuable to women.However, women not only want a male they are attracted to, but they also prefer a man who is attracted to them, so the process of seduction boils down to demonstrating that attraction too. What women want is supposed to be some sort of unsolved mystery that has haunted males, and even females, since the dawn of civilization.Well, no more! Women want men who treat them like women, males who are masculine and who make females feel feminine-men with confidence, charm, and responsibility
”
”
Anonymous
“
If women do not find a male attractive, he is simply not offering them enough genetic value; his behavior is unattractive, and he can only become attractive by improving his behavior to become more masculine and thus in fact more valuable to women.However, women not only want a male they are attracted to, but they also prefer a man who is attracted to them, so the process of seduction boils down to demonstrating that attraction too. What women want is supposed to be some sort of unsolved mystery that has haunted males, and even females, since the dawn of civilization.Well, no more! Women want men who treat them like women, males who are masculine and who make females feel feminine-men with confidence, charm, and responsibility.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Dormer, in other words, had no special knowledge about these victims. He was playing the averages—working from a set of accepted assumptions made by many people in law enforcement about who typically goes missing and who gets murdered by serial killers. University of Illinois criminologist Steve Egger, author of a popular 2002 study called The Killers Among Us, has asserted that nearly 78 percent of female victims of serial murderers are prostitutes. That finding does not seem to have been replicated in any other research, but it’s become received wisdom.
”
”
Robert P. Kolker (Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery)
“
A notorious dandy, Ray was wearing a derby hat and a plaid vest with a matching suit and a long plaid overcoat. As a final flourish, he was carrying a gnarled corkscrew-shaped shillelagh.
”
”
Robert P. Kolker (Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery)
“
7s are often incomprehensible and mysterious. They are often called unsolved mysteries or dark horses, which makes them intriguing to some, and to others, just people who could be considered
”
”
Jason Williams (Numerology: Uncover Your Destiny with Numbers—Details about Your Character, Life Direction, Relationships, Finances, Motivations, and Talents!)
“
parenting style, none of her other siblings survived the vicious beatings. But, amidst all this old talk and scandal, the moral reason that truly shocked the sensibilities of the rural
”
”
Hannah J. Tidy (Horror Stories: The most Terrifying Real unsolved mysterious and unexplained disappearances that are seriously scary, Chilling- Murder, True crimes & ... Haunted locations, Haunted house,))
“
All these frickin’ rich people with all this money who just want to blow it on coke and hookers. And then a whole bunch of homeless people, sleeping on all the corners, cold, hungry, smelling like urine. And then a whole bunch of prostitutes, trying to make cash. And then we all get to know each other.
”
”
Robert P. Kolker (Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery)
“
Laura Lippman's What the Dead Know is inspired by the real-life, unsolved mystery of twin sisters Sheila and Kate Lyon. Lippman first heard the story when she was sixteen years old. Never able to shake it, she fictionalized the tale thirty years later.
”
”
Jessica Lourey (Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction)
“
It is a matter of debate, one of the mysteries yet unsolved. Perhaps the gods seek to wean us from their direct control, like children.” She tucked a finger under Latona’s chin, tipping it up so that she had to sit up straight. “But I do know that they would not choose an unworthy vessel. If they have chosen you for some purpose, it is because you are clever enough and strong enough to bear it.
”
”
Cass Morris (From Unseen Fire (Aven Cycle, #1))
“
The demand for commercial sex will never go away. Neither will the Internet; they’re stuck with each other. It may no longer even matter anymore whether the sale of sex among consenting adults is wrong or right, immoral or empowering. What’s clear is that no good can come from pretending that the people who participate in prostitution don’t exist. That, after all, is what the killer was counting on.
”
”
Robert P. Kolker (Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery)
“
A leaf of a story book has two sides. If you want understand the full story, you CANNOT read just one side of that leaf. So it is with us, you CANNOT listen to just one side of a dispute between individuals. You won't get to uncover the real truth. It'll be an unsolved mystery.
”
”
Marcia M. Edwards (My Faith Saved Me)
“
Nina King was last seen outside her home in Los Angeles on November 19, 1952. She was reported missing by a neighbor. The murder of Nina King now appears to be tied to the disappearance of Los Angeles Police Detective Frank Bogle, who vanished on March 14, 1953, while investigating Miss King’s missing-person case. All of Detective Bogle’s files remain in the archives. The LAPD does not close unsolved cases, and we do not forget our own. We will follow every lead to bring closure to the family of Miss King and to determine what happened to Detective Bogle. We believe that answers in one case could lead to both cases being solved.’” The station switched to commercial as I stared at Frank, my mouth gaping. He looked up for a heartbeat, and then he was gone.
”
”
Elizabeth Hunter (A Ghost in the Glamour (Linx & Bogie Mysteries Book 1))
“
If the novel is an instrument of discovery, what it sets out to discover are bits of that still unsolvable and greatest of all great mysteries, human nature.
”
”
Joseph Epstein (The Novel, Who Needs It?)
“
The Night Bomber by Stewart Stafford
Stefan and Elyse came home by rote,
To find a stranger's chilling note,
"I’m going to kill you" scrawled in red,
Pranks locked out with nothing said.
Then the hall window smashed,
In a firework’s screaming flash,
They threw it out before it burned,
Danger had not passed, they learned.
A ticking device left behind,
Elyse kicked it away just in time,
A garden explosion's massive bang,
Their ears and windows loudly rang.
They wondered what psycho did this deed,
And how they'd crossed this evil breed,
Then they heard them bomb their neighbours
who thought Stefan and Elyse were perpetrators.
Then another blast three doors down,
Stefan ran to help with a worried frown,
Concerned to see who else got hit,
Seeing their attacker was still at it.
A bomber in a ski mask did a backflip,
To dodge their lunging, angry grip,
He swung on ropes and vaulted high,
An acrobat mocking with a stylish eye.
The bomber fled in his getaway car,
A neighbour leapt on before he got far,
He held on tight but got dragged along,
Rolled to the kerb, he couldn't hold on.
The Night Bomber of Sheila’s Cabin
On the loose, an explosive phantom,
Stalking without any reason or pity,
His laughter echoed across the city.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
was a good girl and yet I didn’t give myself credit for surviving, only self-abuse. I did everything that I was supposed to do and yet in the end, I was always abandoned and betrayed. How I was treated by my family would always be one of the unsolved mysteries in my life and one thing I could never control.
”
”
Casey Hammer (SURVIVING MY BIRTHRIGHT: THE AUTHORIZED VERSION)
“
Steve Elkins first heard of the White City from an adventurer named Steve Morgan, who was a professional collector of legends and stories. Morgan had compiled a list of what he considered to be the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries, and he had boxes of files of research into various lost cities, pirate treasures, ancient tombs, and shipwrecks loaded with gold. Morgan
”
”
Douglas Preston (The Lost City of the Monkey God)
“
Morgan had compiled a list of what he considered to be the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries, and he had boxes of files of research into various lost cities, pirate treasures, ancient tombs, and shipwrecks loaded with gold.
”
”
Douglas Preston (The Lost City of the Monkey God)
“
For my part, I never knew who she’d be on any given day. Now that she’s gone, the mystery remains unsolved, part of my untranslatable life (161).
”
”
Linda Murphy Marshall (Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery)
“
To cope within a chaotic and mysterious world, to truly "solve" the unsolvable case, we may, on occasion, need to let go of our yearning to fix it.
”
”
Andrea Lankford (Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail)
“
I’m told I don’t have to try to justify love, which contains at least a small percentage of unsolvable mystery, but I just can’t stand the thought of seeming irrationally carried away by emotion and unable to freestyle my way back to the calm waters of reason. I believe it hurts the feminist cause. And, worse, makes me personally look bad.
”
”
Lauren Oyler (Fake Accounts)
“
But betrayal is a poison that lingers long after the wound has healed, and I couldn’t forget the pain he had caused me, the way he had abused my trust and shattered my heart.
”
”
Amalia Rose (Decoded (The Ex-Files - Unsolved Mysteries Investigations Book 1))
“
He’s an enigma, a mystery that should be left unsolved and untouched, yet he eats my pussy like the answers to all I need to know are in his mouth.
”
”
Lauren Biel (Hitched (Ride or Die Romances))
“
It felt like my body was both overexposed and an unsolved mystery.
”
”
Gabby Rivera (Juliet Takes a Breath)
“
What women want is supposed to be some sort of unsolved mystery that has haunted males, and even females, since the dawn of civilization. Well, no more! Women want men who treat them like women, males who are masculine and who make females feel feminine — men with confidence, charm, and responsibility.
”
”
W. Anton (The Manual: What Women Want and How to Give It to Them)
“
Serial killers are a creature apart from normal society, but it is the same with them.
”
”
Kurt Jensen (Murder Mysteries: True, Horrific, and Unsolved Murder Cases (True & Puzzling Stories Book 1))
“
Adolf Hitler was likely the most infamous missionary serial killers.
”
”
Kurt Jensen (Murder Mysteries: True, Horrific, and Unsolved Murder Cases (True & Puzzling Stories Book 1))
“
People are enthralled and confused by war, murder, medical science, and incredible rescues.
”
”
Kurt Jensen (Murder Mysteries: True, Horrific, and Unsolved Murder Cases (True & Puzzling Stories Book 1))
“
It is a mystery not of the unsolved but soluble type, like the problem of the cause of cancer, but of quite another type.
”
”
Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind)
“
In any story where solutions to mysteries are found, there should always be at least one mystery which remains unsolved.
”
”
Sean Terrence Best
“
Hockey is a violent sport that rewards angry men and boys. Ringette is an unsolved feminine mystery.
”
”
Carrie Snyder (The Juliet Stories)
“
If I'd stopped to think about the strangeness of this, I might have fallen into old habits, old needs to piece together the puzzle. I decided that here was a puzzle that simply didn't matter to me. Here was something I didn't understand, a mystery I would leave behind me unsolved.
”
”
Sean Ferrell
“
In his recent guest editorial, Richard McNally voices skepticism about the National Vietnam Veteran’s Readjustment Study (NVVRS) data reporting that over one-half of those who served in the Vietnam War have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or subclinical PTSD. Dr McNally is particularly skeptical because only 15% of soldiers served in combat units (1). He writes, “the mystery behind the discrepancy in numbers of those with the disease and of those in combat remains unsolved today” (4, p 815). He talks about bizarre facts and implies many, if not most, cases of PTSD are malingered or iatrogenic.
Dr McNally ignores the obvious reality that when people are deployed to a war zone, exposure to trauma is not limited to members of combat units (2,3).
At the Operational Trauma and Stress Support Centre of the Canadian Forces in Ottawa, we have assessed over 100 Canadian soldiers, many of whom have never been in combat units, who have experienced a range of horrific traumas and threats in places like Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. We must inform Dr McNally that, in real world practice, even cooks and clerks are affected when faced with death, genocide, ethnic cleansing, bombs, landmines, snipers, and suicide bombers ...
One theory suggests that there is a conscious decision on the part of some individuals to deny trauma and its impact. Another suggests that some individuals may use dissociation or repression to block from consciousness what is quite obvious to those who listen to real-life patients."
Cameron, C., & Heber, A. (2006). Re: Troubles in Traumatology, and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory/Reply: Troubles in Traumatology and Debunking Myths about Trauma and Memory. Canadian journal of psychiatry, 51(6), 402.
”
”
Colin Cameron
“
Maurice Blanche maintained that amid the tales, the smokescreens, and the deceptive mirrors of life’s unsolved mysteries, truth resides, waiting for someone to enter its sanctum, then leave, without quite closing the door behind them. That is when truth may make its escape.
”
”
Jacqueline Winspear (Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs, #1))
“
For the educated person the world is an open book; to the ignorant, it is an unsolved mystery.
”
”
Tori Murden McClure (A Pearl In the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean)
“
And though their world kept getting darker every day, empires he hadn’t known about coming to light, the one he was building nascent and dangerous and terrifying; though there were mysteries unsolved and questions unanswered and futures unknown; though there were possibilities of danger lurking in every corner, Dante looked around at his chessboard, and with his queen by his side, he felt ready to play them all.
”
”
RuNyx (The Emperor (Dark Verse, #3))
“
Life's greatest mysteries are not meant to be solved in a moment, but explored with curiosity. Embrace the unknown, for it holds the keys to your growth, your wisdom, and the stories yet to be written.
”
”
Saurav Mandal (Top 51 world famous mysteries : Unsolved)
“
Oh Mrs. Churchill, do come over. Someone has killed father." - Lizzie Borden, August 4, 1892
”
”
Lizzie Borden
“
You see I have deduced why Sherlock has a deerstalker cap, why Arthur Conan Doyle chose it. If you some the Jack the Ripper reports the suspect is wearing a dirty deerstalker cap. I believe it is likely because the case was unsolvable he left it on Sherlock Holmes mind forever. I hate to hear him whine so I suppose I shall to return take the stupid hat off his head, that funny author put on him over a century ago.
”
”
C.A.A. Savastano
“
Where are these women disappearing to, and why is no one paying attention? We’re talking about an unsolved mystery right in my own backyard, and I had no idea until now.
”
”
Ashley Winstead (The Last Housewife)
“
Here is my recommendation: wherever possible, treat anything you can as a mystery. Why? Because mysteries make life better. I love mysteries, including the desperately-craving-an-answer part, more than I love their solutions. Definite answers shut down possibilities, while an unsolved puzzle ignites our imagination and invites us to think, ‘What if it turns out to be something shocking and unguessable that will well and truly blow my mind?’.
”
”
Sophie Hannah (Happiness, a Mystery: And 66 Attempts to Solve It)