Fhairshon swore a feud Against the clan M'Tavish; Marched into their land To murder and to ravish; For he did resolve To extirpate the vipers, With four-and-twenty men And five-and-thirty pipers.

-Aytoun,William Edmonstoune
  'The Massacre of the Macpherson', stanza1.

Sleep demands of us a guilty immunity. There is not one of us who, given an eternal incognito, a thumbprint nowhere set against our souls, would not commit rape, murder and all abominations.

-Barnes, Djuna
  Doctor. Nightwood, ch.5.

Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires. 134

-Blake,William
  The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,'Proverbs of Hell'.

Five tomahawks, wi' blude red-rusted; Five scymitars, wi'murder crusted.

-Burns, Robert
  'Tam o' Shanter.  A  Tale'.

Dashiell Hammett took murder out of theVenetian vase and dropped it into the alley.

-Chandler, Raymond
On the moving of murder mysteries from the English country house to more realistic areas. Quoted in Contemporary  Authors (1979).

Mordre wol out, that see we day by day.

-Chaucer, Geoffrey
  Canterbury  Tales,'The Nun's Priest's Tale', l.3052.

See how love and murder will out.

-Congreve,William
  The Double Dealer, act 4, sc.6.

If a young man at the age of twenty-three can write a symphony like that, in five years he will be ready to commit murder.

-Damrosch,WalterJohannes
  After conducting  Aaron Copland's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. Quoted in Machlis Introduction to Contemporary Music (1963).

   Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.

-Depp,Johnny (John Christopher)
  Title of essay, in Blackwood's Magazine, Feb.

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.

-Depp,Johnny (John Christopher)
  'On Murder Considered as One of the Fine  Arts' (supplementary paper), in Blackwood's Magazine, Nov.

Glory Be, whin Business gets above sellin'tinpinny nails Durkheim in a brown paper cornucopy,'tis hard to tell it fr'm murther.

-Dunne, Finley Peter
Mr Dooley's Opinions,'On Wall Street'.

The long and distressing controversy over capital punishment is very unfair to anyone meditating murder.

-Fisher (of Lambeth), Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Baron
  In the Sunday Times, 24 Feb.

Murder doesn't round out anybody's life except the murdered's and sometimes the murderer's.

-Hammett, (Samuel) Dashiell
  The Thin Man, ch.31.

Television has brought back murder into the homeö where it belongs.

-Hitchcock, SirAlfred Joseph
  In the Observer,19 Dec.

Murder is a unique crime for which we can never make reparation.

-Baroness
  'Series Detectives', collected in Brown and Munro (eds) Writers Writing (1993).

Ez fer war, I call it murder,ö There you hev it plain an'flat; I don't want to go no furder Than myTestyment fer that; God hez sed so plump an'fairly, It's ez long ez it is broad, An' you've gut to git up airly Ef you want to take in God.

-Lowell,James Russell
  'A Letter'. In the Boston Courier,17  Jun. Collected in The Biglow Papers, First Series (1848), no.1.

Herein may be seen noble chyvalrye, curtosye, humanyte¤  , frendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, and synne.

-Malory, SirThomas   d.1471
c.1485  Morte d'Arthur, Caxton's preface.

In the interests of economy they condemned hundreds of children to death and I call it murder.

-Maxton,James
  Speech against the withdrawal of child benefits, including the supply of milk, in Scotland. In Hansard, 27  Jun.

A woman is stripped of everything by them [saloons]. Her husband is torn from her; she is robbed of her sons, her home, her food, and her virtue; and then they strip her clothes off and hang her up bare in these dens of robbery and murder. Truly does the saloon make a woman bare of all things!

-Nation, CarryAmelia ne¤  e Moore
c.1893  Quoted in Carleton Beals Cyclone Carry (1962), ch.14.

What can I tell you, son of mine? I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind, I could tell of crimes that shame mankind, Of brutal wrong and deeds malign, Of rape and murder, son of mine; But I'll tell instead of brave and fine When lives of black and white entwine, And men in brotherhood combineö This would I tell you, son of mine.

-Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska
  We Are Going,'Son of Mine'.