It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

The strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes.

Mystery is a word with no objective pertinence, merely describing the limitations of a mind. In fact, a mind may be classified by the order of the phenomena it considers mysterious.… The mystery is resolved, the solution made known. “Of course, it is obvious!” comes the chorus. A word about the obvious: it is always obvious.… The common mind transposed the sequence, letting the mystery generate the solution. This is logic in reverse; actually the mystery relates to the solution as the foam relates to the beer.…

The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive.

I refer to what is called mysterium iniquitatis, meaning, as I see it, that a crime in the final analysis remains inexplicable inasmuch as it cannot be fully traced back to biological, psychological and/or sociological factors. Totally explaining one’s crime would be tantamount to explaining away his or her guilt and to seeing in him or her not a free and responsible human being but a machine to be repaired. Even criminals themselves abhor this treatment and prefer to be held responsible for their deeds. From a convict serving his sentence in an Illinois penitentiary I received a letter in which he deplored that 'the criminal never has a chance to explain himself. He is offered a variety of excuses to choose from. Society is blamed and in many instances the blame is put on the victim.

Even in respect to those crimes which seem perfectly beyond human foresight, such as murders committed in general at the close of quarrels, arising without a motive, and under other circumstances to all appearance the most fortuitous or accidental; nevertheless, experience proves that murders are committed annually, not only pretty nearly to the same extent, but even that the instruments employed are in the same proportions. Now, if this occurs in the case of crimes whose origin seems to be purely accidental, what shall we say of those admitted to be the result of reflection.

Crime is common. Logic is rare.

Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.

Life is not like a murder mystery. In mysteries people always do the same thing. Then when some little thing is out of line, some wise-guy amateur detective makes big deductions. In real life, people don't do the same things all the time. They do different things at different times. In real life, people are crazy.

the more uncommon often only mislead us so long as the causes of the more ordinary are still unknown;

It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.

As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.

A mystery is something that can never be fully known. There's always more to know about a mystery. And the beautiful thing is, it's a mystery that can capture your whole life. This mystery has the power to not only transform us through an encounter but then actually teach us how to live a eucharistic life, which is a life of self-gift in imitation of Jesus' gift. It makes me want to be able to give myself more and more with, for and in Jesus. It's this mystery that will never be exhausted.