Sue Grafton > Quotes

“Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.”
― Sue Grafton

“You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.”
― Sue Grafton, T is for Trespass

“I love being single. It's almost like being rich.”
― Sue Grafton

“There's a certain class of people who will do you in and then remain completely mystified by the depth of your pain.”
― Sue Grafton, E is for Evidence

“Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they're right - a chilling thought when you sit down to dinner with a family of five. All those potential killers passing their plates.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.”
― Sue Grafton

“It's pitiful to have a life in which junk food is awarded the same high status as sex.”
― Sue Grafton

“The hard thing about death is that nothing ever changes. The hard thing about life is that nothing stays the same.”
― Sue Grafton, J is for Judgment

“Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.”
― Sue Grafton, I is for Innocent

“He might be a man without character, but she was a woman without courage. Of the two, which was worse?”
― Sue Grafton, S Is For Silence

“All of us are subjected to somebody else's power at some point. So once in a while you kiss ass. So what? Either you make your peace with that early, or you end up living your life as a crank and a misfit.”
― Sue Grafton

“In my opinion, there's no condition in life that can't be ameliorated by a dose of junk food.”
― Sue Grafton, Q is for Quarry

“I know there are people who believe you should forgive and forget. For the record, I'd like to say I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I'm given the opportunity to get even first.”
― Sue Grafton, V is for Vengeance

“If I'd been listening closely, I'd have caught the sound of the gods having a great big old tee-hee at my expense.”
― Sue Grafton, U is for Undertow

“I hate nature. I really do. Nature is composed entirely of sticks, dirt, fall-down places, biting and stinging things, and savageries too numerous to list. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Man has been building cities since the year oughty-ought, just to get away from this stuff.”
― Sue Grafton, F is for Fugitive

“Perhaps when we're forced to forfeit what we own, we lose any sentimental associations. Perhaps pawning our valuables frees us in the same way a house fire destroys not only our worldly goods, but our attachment to what's gone.”
― Sue Grafton, V is for Vengeance

“I write letters to my right brain all the time. They're just little notes. And right brain, who likes to get little notes from me, will often come through within a day or two.”
― Sue Grafton

“For the record, I'd like to say that I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I have a chance to get even first"
Kinsey Millhone, V is for Vengeance”
― Sue Grafton

“What could smell better than supper being cooked by someone else?”
― Sue Grafton, E is for Evidence

“Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them."

"I don't believe in ghosts," I said, faintly.

"Some people can't see the color red. That doesn't mean it isn't there," she replied.”
― Sue Grafton, M Is for Malice

“I figure guys are like Whitman's Samplers. I like to take a little bite out of each and then move on before the whole box gets stale.”
― Sue Grafton

“The critical lessons in life hold sway whether you like it or not.”
― Sue Grafton, V is for Vengeance

“Grief is as contagious as a yawn.”
― Sue Grafton, V is for Vengeance

“It's disconcerting to realize how little you have to say to someone who once occupied such a prominent place in your bed.”
― Sue Grafton, J is for Judgment

“The Latin term pro bono, as most attorneys will attest, roughly translated means for boneheads and applies to work done without charge.”
― Sue Grafton, O is for Outlaw

“Too much virtue has a corrupting effect.”
― Sue Grafton

“You try to keep life simple but it never works, and in the end all you have left is yourself.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“I showered and shampooed. I even shaved the requisite legs and armpits just in case I fell in a swoon and one or the other was exposed to view. (Kinsey Millhone)”
― Sue Grafton, U is for Undertow

“So much of the past in encapsulated in the odds and ends. Most of us discard more information about ourselves than we ever care to preserve. Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered but skewed by those forgotten. The memory is like twin orbiting stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed.”
― Sue Grafton, O is for Outlaw

“Built into bad news is that sense of profound disbelief. The mind struggles to absorb the bare facts, defending itself against the larger implications.”
― Sue Grafton, V is for Vengeance

“I did discover that if you're interested in low wages, a bookstore ranks below retail clothing sales, except the hours are worse.”
― Sue Grafton

“Personally I don’t endorse the notion of mortality. It’s fine for other folk, but I disapprove of the concept for me and my loved ones. Seems unfair that we’re not allowed to vote on the matter and not one of us is excused. Who made up that rule?" - Kinsey Millhone”
― Sue Grafton, V is for Vengeance

“It's like people think just because you go to church you're not all that bright. I mean just because I'm a born-again doesn't mean I lost IQ points.”
― Sue Grafton, M Is for Malice