Top 182 Quotes & Sayings by Karin Slaughter - Page 3

You can take risks with the characters and their development in a standalone novel.

Women who write thrillers are called 'dark.' Male writers are called 'powerful.'

A book I would take with me to a desert island is 'Paradise Lost,' which I studied in college and hated so much by the end of the class that I never wanted to see it again.

What I know is the characters in a Southern town. I know the cadence of the language and the voice of Atlanta because I've lived here for so long. And I know the neighborhoods, and I hopefully know the people, and I feel a connection to them. And I also feel like I'm honoring them when I talk about them.

Flannery O'Connor was a revelation for me. When I read her, I was very young, and I didn't understand what she was doing. I didn't see the - any of the Catholicism or any of the social stuff.

I have a superhero complex. If I see anything bad happen, I run towards it, rather idiotically because, after all, what could I do?

I never really fitted in, because I've always been interested in really dark things.

My sister lived in England for a while when I was 12, and I came to visit her, and I spent most of the time in her flat reading.

It's a very Southern thing to be interested in dark stuff.

I always want to make sure the book I'm writing is the best book I can deliver.

Readers are very, very savvy, and I don't want to insult them by making them think I'm too lazy to get it right.

The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'

I don't get hung up a lot on angst.

I want to be a better writer. I want to learn and grow, to know how to tell stories in a different and more challenging way. I've learned it doesn't get easier each time. It actually gets harder.

I always try to block out an hour or so a day to read. Being a writer is a job, and reading helps train my brain in the right direction.

I grew up watching the 'People's Choice Awards.'

I'm just not a crazy, stay-out-all-night sort of person. I love writing.

In the South, we drink the Bible with our mother's milk.

That's why I love crime novels so much: When I write a crime novel, the conflict is built in.

As a writer, I've always felt it's my job to be extremely careful when writing about victims, especially women.

Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

I hate to badmouth any book or writer, because I know how it feels to be on the other end of that.

Reading is not just an escape. It is access to a better way of life.

[On men:] ... you never know what they're like until you get them home and take them out of their packages.

I'm afraid of the general things that everyone is afraid of: a bump in the night that could be a cat or Death dragging his sickle across the room; losing my health; becoming homeless, never meeting George Clooney.

I am a bit of a Dudley Do-Gooder, though, because if I see a car accident or something bad happen, I am one of those idiots who runs toward the problem instead of away from it. Not that I would recommend this behavior.

I don't understand people who say they're bored. Look out your window.

I'm not somebody who believes in evil.

Usually, guys, when something bad happens, they punish someone else.

Every successful author I know faced crushing rejection early on, and they got back up and kept going.

People just make stupid mistakes. And they keep making them and keep making them, and suddenly they can't dig themselves out.

You can take my heart, but I can't let you take my dog.

If you're a smart guy, you should really try to find out what women are thinking. I mean, we are 51 percent of the population.

Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation's sovereignty.

Even Gone With the Wind had a shocking, cold-blooded murder.

Talking of the local Sheriff, Jake Valentine, tall and skinny and his wife Myra, "She was a short woman, maybe five feet tall in her socks, the top of her head not quite reaching Jake's chest. What she lacked in height she made up for in girth. Jeffrey guessed she was at least a hundred pounds overweight. Standing side by side, the Valentines looked like the living embodiment of the number ten.

A lot of novels use crime as a stepping stone to talk about greater issues. So I just think of myself as a writer.

I'm sold as a literary writer in Holland; I'm sold as crime fiction in England. I think of it as just literature.

I never felt isolated; I just liked being alone. I think that some people are good at being alone, and some people arent, and as a child, I really liked it.

You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.

It really sucks getting older. Sometimes I'll be walking along and I'll just glance over my shoulder to make sure nothing has fallen off.

Don't try to follow in my footsteps. Make your own footsteps! No one else can tell the stories that are inside of you except for you.

First and foremost, I want people to have a good read, because I want everything I write to entertain people. There are always different layers to the story, though, so if you want to think about social justice, or sexism or racism or homophobia, or really drill down into why the world is a better place when the police force looks like the people they are policing, then that's there, too.

Everyone had a reason for everything they did, even if that reason was sometimes stupidity.

I can’t—” Lena repeated. “I can’t do it. I can’t live without him.” Sara gently pulled her hand away from Jared’s. She smoothed down the sheet, tucked it in close around his side. She looked at Lena—really looked at her straight in the eye. “Good,” Sara told her. “Now you know how it feels.

I went to a Christian School, and when I reached a certain age, I wasn't allowed to wear pants to school anymore. There was a big conference about it with my parents about how unladylike it was for me to wear pants ,this was a school where the principal and once of the coaches stood at the front door with a wooden ruler to make sure girls' skirts were an inch below their knee. So, from that day forward, I had to wear skirts, which meant that I couldn't play on the playground like I used to. I really feel like I could've been the next Serena Williams if not for that.

Alafair Burke understands the criminal mind. Long Gone is both an education and an entertainment of the first order. This is a very clever and very smart novel by a very clever and smart writer. The dialogue crackles, the plot is intriguing, and the pacing is perfect.

When a woman creates an unlikable character, a lot of people think it's a mistake.

A lot of men just don't read. They don't read fiction at all.

You can only make decisions with the information you have at the time

I think that people do things for a reason - that we have mental illness, that we have genetic wiring that can get triggered by certain environmental factors.

A good editor is one of the sharpest tools a writer can have in her toolbox.

The plot is very important because writers have to play fair with their readers, but no one would care about the plot if the character work wasn't there. So, basically every book I work on starts with me thinking not just about the bad thing that's going to happen, but how that bad thing is going to ripple through the community, the family of the victim, and the lives of the investigators. I am keenly aware when I'm working that the crimes I am writing about have happened to real people. I take that very seriously.

Being a Southerner, Im interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.

I grew up reading crime fiction and, especially in the '80s, women were just there to be saved or screwed.

I am a voracious reader myself. I don't stick to one genre. My only criteria is that it's a good story. I try to bring that to my work because I think people can read your excitement about a story.

I was with a real jerk after the first heartbreak, and once I did the prerequisite eating an entire cake and singing "All By Myself" in the shower, I realized that people treat you badly when you let them, and that I had to respect myself and not let anyone else treat me that way again. If someone really loves you, they are your biggest champion, not your biggest detractor.

Meg Gardiner is one of my favorite authors. She always delivers a terrific read. Phantom Instinct should go to the top of your 'to-be-read' pile.

sexual predators were like cockroaches. For every one you saw, there were twenty more hiding behind the walls.

Ultimately, I'm in control of what's going on in the books, so I can back off, if it's scaring me too much.