A Is for Alibi Quotes

“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

“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 don't know what is love about and I'm not sure I believe in it anyway.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“People can hold out just so long and then they fold.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“You kill people you hate or you kill in rage or you kill to get even, but you don't kill someone you're indifferent to.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“Whoever invented breakfast really did it good.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“…I was startled out of my concentration by the sound of malicious hissing. Waddling toward me with remarkable speed were two huge white geese, their heads thrust forward, mouths open like snakes with their tongues protruding, emitting a terrifying sound. I gave a low involuntary cry and began to backtrack toward my car, afraid to take my eyes off them. They covered the ground between us at a pace that forced me into a run. I barely reached my car before they caught up with me. I wrenched the door open and slammed it again with a panic I hadn't felt in years. I locked both doors, half expecting the viperous birds to batter at my windows until they gave way. For a moment they balanced, half lifted, wings flapping, black eyes bright with ill-will, their hissing faces even with mine. And then they lost interest and waddled off, honking and hissing, pecking savagely at the grass. Until that moment, it had never even occurred to me to include crazed geese among my fears, but they had suddenly shot straight to the top of the list along with worms and water bugs.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“The basic characteristics of any good investigator are a plodding nature and infinite patience. Society has inadvertently been grooming women to this end for years.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“So far, I felt like I had a lapful of confetti and the notion of piecing it all together to make a picture seemed very remote indeed.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“Haven’t you ever heard of compromise?” “Oh sure,” I said. “That’s when you give away half the things you want. That’s when you give the other guy half of what’s rightfully yours. I’ve done that lots of times. It sucks.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“There were pieces missing yet but they would fall into place and then maybe the whole of it would make sense.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“My own mystery, unplumed, undetected, was sorted into files that were neatly labeled but really didn't say much.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“A lot of people were mistaken about a lot of things.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“Epilogue The Santa Teresa police conducted a brief investigation but in the end no charges were filed. The folder on Laurence Fife contains the report I sent to the chief of the Bureau of Collection and Investigative Services regarding the discharge of my firearm “while acting within the course and scope” of my employment. There is also a copy of the refund check I sent to Nikki for the unused portion of the $5000 she advanced on account. All together, I was paid $2978.25 for services rendered in the course of that sixteen days and I suppose it was fair enough. The shooting disturbs me still. It has moved me into the same camp with soldiers and maniacs. I never set out to kill anyone. But maybe that’s what Gwen would say, and Charlie too. I’ll recover, of course. I’ll be ready for business again in a week or two, but I’ll never be the same. You try to keep life simple but it never works, and in the end all you have left is yourself. —Respectfully submitted,
Kinsey Millhone”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“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

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

“The only cleavage I got left, I sit on,” she said and then hooted at herself.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“Sex is crude , which is why we all run around doing it . - Charlotte Mercer”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“He seemed to operate at half speed, taking his own time about everything. It made me aware of the usual tension with which I live, that keyed-up state of raw nerve that makes me grind my teeth in my sleep. Sometimes I get so wired that I forget to eat at all, only remembering at night, even then not being hungry but wolfing down food anyway as though the speed and quantity of consumption might atone for the infrequency. With Charlie, I could feel my time clock readjust, my pace slowing to match his. When I finished the second glass of wine, I heaved a sigh and only then did I realize that I’d been holding myself tensely, like a joke snake ready to jump out of a box.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“There are moments in every investigation when my speculations about what’s possible cloud and confuse any lingering sense I have of what’s actually true. I wanted to check out my intuitions. The”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“I tried to imagine myself dead, someone sorting carelessly through my belongings. What was there really of my life? Canceled checks. Reports all typewritten and filed. Everything of value reduced to terse prose. I didn’t keep much myself, didn’t hoard or save.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“couldn’t think when I’d last run into a man quite so inventive. My reaction to him was gut-level chemistry—like crystals of sodium flung in a swimming pool, throwing off sparks, dancing across the water like light. I had a friend once who said to me, “Wherever there is sex, we work to create a relationship that’s worthy of it.” I thought about that now, sensing that soon I would do that with him—start to bond, start to fantasize, start”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“aware of, he was on his knees between mine, pulling the neck of my T-shirt down, his mouth on my bare breast. I clutched at him convulsively, slid down and forward against him and he half lifted me, hands cupped under my ass. I hadn’t known how much I wanted him until then, until that point, but the sound I made was primitive and his response was fierce and immediate and after that, in the half-light, with the table pushed aside, we made love on the floor. He did things to me that I’d only read about in books, and at the end of it, legs trembling, heart thudding, I laughed and he buried his face against my belly, laughing too. He was gone again by 2:00 A.M. He had work to do the next day and so did I. Even so, I missed him as I brushed my teeth, smirking at my own reflection in the bathroom mirror. My chin was pink from whisker burn. My hair seemed to be standing straight up on end. There is nothing quite as smug as the self-congratulation that abounds when one has been thoroughly and proficiently screwed, but I was a little bit embarrassed with myself nevertheless. This was not good, not cool. As a rule, I scrupulously avoid personal contact with anyone connected with a case. My sexual wrangling with Charlie was foolish, unprofessional, and in theory, possibly dangerous. In some little nagging part of my head, it didn’t feel right to me, but I did love his”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“Vegas tends to affect me that way, some combination of tension and dread to which my body responds with all the symptoms of incipient flu.”
― Sue Grafton, A Is for Alibi

“I don’t know what love is about and I’m not sure I believe in it anyway.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“A man in a nylon bikini, with that little knot sticking out in front, isn’t half as interesting as a man in a good-looking business suit. Charlie”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi

“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.”
― Sue Grafton, A is for Alibi