Sue Coletta > Sue's Quotes

“Life is not what we live; it is what we imagine we are living.”
― Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon

“A feeling is no longer the same when it comes the second time. It dies through the awareness of its return. We become tired and weary of our feelings when they come too often and last too long.”
― Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon

“Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little.”
― Holley Gerth

“Most of us are one of two things: blind or chicken-shit. We wouldn't know a crossroads in our lives if it had a set of stoplights and a Denny's.”
― Larry Brooks, Bait and Switch

“If you’ve ever wondered why some writers who, in your humble opinion, don’t write as well as you do yet are rich and famous while you struggle onward, this is the reason. They are great directors.”
― Larry Brooks

“But writers experience the world and themselves in a unique way. We look for meaning. We see it even when we are not paying attention, which is seldom because, as writers, paying attention is what we do. We are scribes to the ticking of the days, and we have a job to do. We are not at peace unless we are doing it.”
― Larry Brooks

“The serial murderer often seeks the very form of capital punishment that is being held over his head as a deterrent.”
― Joel Norris, Serial Killers

“Because his killing is not a passion of the moment but a compelling urge that has been growing within him sometimes for years, he has completely amalgamated this practice into his lifestyle.”
― Joel Norris, Serial Killers

“But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“She didn't give a damn about some of them, but she had grown to learn that inattention can be a stratagem to avoid pain, and that it is often misread as shallowness and indifference.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“I think it's easy to mistake understanding for empathy - we want empathy so badly. Maybe learning to make that distinction is part of growing up. It's hard and ugly to know somebody can understand you without even liking you.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“Silence can mock.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.”
― Thomas Harris

“God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“How miserably hypocritical, you might say, but no sooner am I offered a chance to flee Hell than I yearn to stay. Few families hold their relations as closely as do prisons. Few marriages sustain the high level of passion that exists between criminals and those who seek to bring them to justice. It’s no wonder the Zodiac Killer flirted so relentlessly with the police. Or that Jack the Ripper courted and baited detectives with his - or her - coy letters. We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Damned

“Ugly people kill people all the time. But when pretty people did, it got attention.”
― Chelsea Cain, Kill You Twice

“In the stillness of headstones,
Darkness is my blanket.
And forever is my song.
In the arms if stone angels, I'm not afraid.
Because finally and completely,
I belong.”
― Jordan Dane, In the Arms of Stone Angels

“Dream big. Dream often. Dream without limits.”
― Sue Coletta

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
― Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.”
― Brendan Behan