Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead Quotes

“It doesn't matter what people want to hear. It doesn't matter if people like you. It doesn't matter if the whole world thinks you're crazy. It doesn't matter whose heart you break. What matters is the truth.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Be grateful for every scar life inflicts on you. Where we’re unhurt is where we are false. Where we are wounded and healed is where our real self gets to show itself. That’s where you get to show who you really are”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Never be afraid to learn from the ether...That's where knowledge lives before someone hunts it, kills it, and mounts it in a book.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“The detective thinks he is investigating a murder or a missing girl. But truly he is investigating something else altogether, something he cannot grasp hold of directly. Satisfaction will be rare. Uncertainty will be your natural state. Sureness will always elude you. The detective will always circle around what he wants, never seeing it whole. We do not go on despite this. We go on because of it.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“There are no coincidences, only mysteries that haven't been solved, clues that haven't been placed. Most are blind to the language of the bird overhead, the leaf in our path, the phonographic record stuck in a groove, the unknown caller on the phone. They don't see the omens. They don't know the signs.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Omens change. Signs shift. Nothing is permanent.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Those who try to grasp on to the mystery will never succeed. Only those who let it slip their fingers will come to know it, and hear its secrets”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“You cannot follow another's footsteps to the truth," Silette wrote. "A hand can point the way. But the hand is not the teaching. The finger that points the way is not the way. The mystery is a payless land, and each detective must cut her own trail through a cruel territory.
"Believe nothing. Question everything. Follow only the clues.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“I was glad I wasn’t pretty anymore. It was so much easier to do things like this without being pretty.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“The thing about this city,” Andray said. “It knows how to tell a beautiful story. It truly does. But if you’re looking for a happy ending, you better be lookin’ somewhere else.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“The fat lady never really sings her last song. She only changes costumes and goes on to the next”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“To let go of the self is the highest calling of the self, something that few achieve. And something that every self, whether she knows it or not, aspires”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Consider the possibility,’” I said, quoting Silette, “‘that what we perceive as the future has already happened, and intuition is only a very good memory.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Each was over fifty and poor, probably homeless, wearing clothes that hadn't been washed this year. They were the same type of man you could see in any city in America, in a little park or square just off downtown, halfway to skid row. I think they started making them after the Civil War; fighters who'd lost their wars and lost their fight. Even when their side won, they lost.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“But I knew I was there for a reason. There are no coincidences. Just opportunities you've been too dumb to take, doors you've been too blind to step through.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“There are no coincidences", Silette wrote. "Only mysteries that haven't been solved, clues that haven't been placed. Most are blind to the language of the bird overheard, the leaf in our path, the phonographic record stuck in a groove, the unknown caller on the phone. They don't see the omens. They don't know how to read the signs.
To them life is like a book with blank pages. But to the detective, it is an illuminated manuscript of mysteries.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“There are no coincidences. Just opportunities you’re too dumb to see, doors you’ve been too blind to step through.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“sometimes the world seem so fucked up, like nothing make any sense at all. Like there’s no sense at all. Just—just vicious like that. Just vicious. But then sometimes, sometimes, it’s like—like it all fit together perfect, like a puzzle.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“there was two Bibles,” he said. “Or one, but it been split in half. He said half’s in the book, on paper. But the other half is inside people. You born with it, but it’s up to you to find out. You gotta learn to see it for yourself. That’s the only way.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“To them life is like a book with blank pages. But to the detective, it is an illuminated manuscript of mysteries.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Interviewer: What does it mean to you to be a Silettian detective?
Murray: (Pause.) It means I was blind, and now I can see.
Interviewer: And the drinking?
Murray: Well. Some people need glasses to see, you know.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“I know," I said. "I'm working on being as stupid as everyone else but I'm not there yet. I'm hoping more drugs will help. They say they kill brain cells.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“My uncle, he used to say there was two Bibles," he said. "Or one, but it been split in half. He said half’s in the book, on paper. But the other half is inside people. You born with it, but it’s up to you to find out. You gotta learn to see it for yourself. That’s the only way.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“as if we both weren’t crying, “this guy, he says, ‘Be grateful for every scar life inflicts on you.’ He says, ‘Where we’re unhurt is where we are false. Where we’re wounded and healed is where our real self gets to show itself.’ That’s where you get to show who you are.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Now,” I said, “why don’t you come with me and see what I do? Because obviously you don’t trust me. And I want you to trust me, Leon,” I lied. “It’s important to me that you trust me.” I didn’t care if Leon trusted me. But I did want him to keep paying me.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Now that he wasn’t trying to be frightening, Terrell’s good nature shone, and he grinned as he smashed up my truck.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“Sometimes I don’t get people. For people like Leon it was always someone else’s job to bring the metal detector or the magnifying glass or pony up the fingerprint dust.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“On any given day in court, Vic would be wearing the most expensive suit in the place. If anyone minded, they kept it to themselves. New Orleans was a little like England: people were comfortable with class distinctions.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“I know people,” he said, shrugging. But under the shrug he almost smiled. There was still a good detective in there somewhere. Across the street from the restaurant, three big round people in shorts, showing white goose-fleshed legs in the gray cold, were taking pictures of a house covered with spray paint. It had the familiar X with cryptic numbers and letters in the hollows. Underneath was spray-painted in bright safety orange: OWNER HOME!! DO NOT TAKE CAT!! WE WILL SHOOT!! CAT RESCUERS GO FUCK YOURSELF!! GO HOME CAT PEOPLE!! GO HOME!!! CAT PEOPLE GO HOME!”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

“If I told you the truth plainly,” the man said, “you would not understand.” His voice was scratchy and warped, like an old record. But I could still make out the tinge of a French accent. “If life gave you answers outright, they would be meaningless. Each detective must take her clues and solve her mysteries for herself. No one can solve your mystery for you; a book cannot tell you the way.” Now I recognized the man; it was, of course, Jacques Silette, the great French detective. The words were from his one and only book, Détection.”
― Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead