G is for Gumshoe Quotes

“...He has all the uncanny intuitions of a psychopath. Have you ever dealt with one? It's almost like a form of mind-reading...”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“While I'm not a big fan of nature, its intractability amuses me to no end. (Kinsey Millhone)”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“I used to have a crow named Albert. Bertie, when I got to know him better. I got him when he was just a little guy and had him for years. A young crow doesn't navigate well and they'll sometimes crash-land. They're called branchers at that age-that's about all they can do, lumber awkwardly from branch to branch. Sometimes they get stuck and they wail like babies until you get 'em down. Bertie must have bitten off a bit more than he could chew and he'd tumbled to the ground. I had a cat named Little John who brought him in, squawking hellishly. LJ and I had a tussle to see who was going to take possession. Fortunately for Bertie, I won the contest. He and the cat became friends later, but it was touch-and-go for a while there. LJ was pissed off because he thought this was Thanksgiving dinner and I was getting in his way (Dietz)”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“In her presence, I felt as dainty and feminine as a side of beef. When I opened my mouth, I was worried I would moo.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“Finally, he allowed me to turn the key in the lock and the front door, with its porthole-shaped window, swung open. I don’t know what I’d expected. I’d tried not to conjure up fantasies of any kind, but what I saw left me inarticulate. The entire apartment had the feel of a ship’s interior. The walls were highly polished teak and oak, with shelves and cubbyholes on every side. The kitchenette was still located to the right where the old one had been, a galley-style arrangement with a pint-size stove and refrigerator. A microwave oven and trash compactor had been added. Tucked in beside the kitchen was a stacking washer-dryer, and next to that was a tiny bathroom. In the living area, a sofa had been built into a window bay, with two royal blue canvas director’s chairs arranged to form a “conversational grouping.” Henry did a quick demonstration of how the sofa could be extended into sleeping accommodations for company, a trundle bed in effect. The dimensions of the main room were still roughly fifteen feet on a side, but now there was a sleeping loft above, accessible by way of a tiny spiral staircase where my former storage space had been. In the old place, I’d usually slept naked on the couch in an envelope of folded quilt. Now, I was going to have an actual bedroom of my own. I wound my way up, staring in amazement at the double-size platform bed with drawers underneath. In the ceiling above the bed, there was a round shaft extending through the roof, capped by a clear Plexiglas skylight that seemed to fling light down on the blue-and-white patchwork coverlet. Loft windows looked out to the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. Along the back wall, there was an expanse of cedar-lined closet space with a rod for hanging clothes, pegs for miscellaneous items, shoe racks, and floor-to-ceiling drawers. Just off the loft, there was a small bathroom. The tub was sunken with a built-in shower and a window right at tub level, the wooden sill lined with plants. I could bathe among the treetops, looking out at the ocean where the clouds were piling up like bubbles. The towels were the same royal blue as the cotton shag carpeting. Even the eggs of milled soap were blue, arranged in a white china dish on the edge of the round brass sink.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“If I were asked to rate my looks on a scale of one to ten, I wouldn't.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“crescent wrench,”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“In the meantime, I have work of my own to do and a life that feels richer for his having been a part of it.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“I’m well aware that immortality is simply an illusion we carry with us to keep ourselves functional from day to day, but the idea of a murder contract was inconceivable to me.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“Old people were visible everywhere, in beds, in wheelchairs, on gurneys, huddled on hard wooden benches in the wide corridor; idle, insulated from their surroundings by senses that had shut down over the years. They seemed as motionless as plants, resigned to infrequent watering. Anyone would wither under such a regimen: no exercise, no air, no sunlight. They had outlived not only friends and family, but most illnesses, so that at eighty and ninety, they seemed untouchable, singled out to endure, without relief, a life that stretched into yawning eternity. We passed a crafts room where six women sat around a table, making potholders out of nylon loops woven on red metal frames. Their efforts were as misshapen as mine had been when I was five. I never liked doing that shit the first time around and I didn’t look forward to having to do it again at the end of my days. Maybe I’d get lucky and be struck down by a beer truck before I was forced into such ignominy.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“envied. I gathered they’d just returned from some kind of bridge-oriented cruise in which baby slams and gourmet foods were served up in equal measure. Much talk of no-trump, double finesses, and Sheinwold, whose strategies they were”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“My problem with country music is that I try to avoid the very situations the lyrics lament.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe

“Maybe life is just a straight shot from the horrors of grade school to the horrors of the nursing home.”
― Sue Grafton, G is for Gumshoe