Top 124 Quotes & Sayings by Sue Grafton - Page 2

There are laws for everything except the harm families do.

Lucky is the spouse who dies first, who never has to know what survivors endure.

I caution writers all the time to slow down and pay more attention to the work in front of them than to the end result. I don't think you write one book and get anywhere. I think you write five books and then maybe you are finally on the right path.

Personally, I'd rather grow old alone than in the company of anyone I've met so far. I don't experience myself as lonely, incomplete, or unfulfilled, but I don't talk about that much. It seems to piss people off--especially men. (Kinsey Millhone)

The beauty of word processing, God bless my word processor, is that it keeps the plotting very fluid. The prose becomes like a liquid that you can manipulate at will. In the old days, when I typed, every piece of typing paper was like cast in concrete.

That's the way the system works. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.

You try to keep life simple but it never works, and in the end all you have left is yourself.

Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them." "I don't believe in ghosts," I said, faintly. "Some people can't see the color red. That doesn't mean it isn't there," she replied.

Life was reduced to its four basic elements: air, food, drink, and a good friend.

People talk about dysfunctional families; I've never seen any other kind.

Lying contains the same hostile elements as a practical joke in that the 'victim' ends up looking foolish in his own eyes and laughable in everyone else's.

There are days when none of us can bear it, but the good comes around again. Happiness is seasonal, like anything else. Wait it out. There are people who love you. People who can help.

The memory is like orbiting twin stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed.

The critical lessons in life hold sway whether you like it or not.

Grieving is like being ill. You think the entire world revolves around you and it doesn't.

There's a certain class of people who will do you in and then remain completely mystified by the depth of your pain.

Age plays cruel tricks on the human face; all our repressed feelings become visible on the surface, where they harden like a mask.

Everything happens for a reason, but that doesn't mean there's a point.

It is a truth of human nature that we can ponder life's mysteries for only so long before we lose interest and move on to something else.

Writing is not about making a buck, not about publishers and agents. Writing is not about feeling good. Writing is about pain, suffering, hard work, risk, and fear.

Sometimes the hardest part of my job is the incessant reminder of the fact we're all trying so assiduously to ignore: we are here temporarily. Life is only ours on loan.

Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them.

Poise and indifference so often look the same.

He might be a man without character, but she was a woman without courage. Of the two, which was worse?

Smile. It gives your face something to do.

Grade school was perilous. ... I can see how I must have worried them. I was the kind of kid who, for no apparent reason, wept piteously or threw up on myself. On an especially scary day, I sometimes did both.

People get careless when they're feeling safe.

grief is an illness I can't recover from.

I only get writer's block about once a day.

You can't make anyone love you and you can't stop anyone from dying.

To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.

There is no sound so terrible as a man's sorrow for his own death.

Sometimes being fooled by love is worth the price. At least you know you're alive and capable of feeling, even if all you end up with is chest pain.

any mystery writer is both magician and moralist ... two species of artist in short supply.

So much of the past in encapsulated in the odds and ends. Most of us discard more information about ourselves than we ever care to preserve. Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered but skewed by those forgotten. The memory is like twin orbiting stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed.

I figure guys are like Whitman's Samplers. I like to take a little bite out of each and then move on before the whole box gets stale.

It's been my observation, after years in the [insurance] business, that a certain percent of the population simply can't resist the urge to cheat.

Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb.

People in California seem to age at a different rate than the rest of the country. Maybe it's the passion for diet and exercise, maybe the popularity of cosmetic surgery. Or maybe we're afflicted with such a horror of aging that we've halted the process psychically.

It's disconcerting to realize how little you have to say to someone who once occupied such a prominent place in your bed.

You write one book and you're ready for fame and fortune. I don't know that people are spending the time and attention on learning how to write-which takes years. Everybody sees the success stories.

Grief is as contagious as a yawn.

There is, apparently, some law of nature decreeing that all home construction must double in its projected cost and take four times longer than originally anticipated.

School was a source of great suffering to me, but once I learned to read, I disappeared into books, where I was a happy visitor to all the worlds that sprang full-blown from the printed page.

Perhaps when we're forced to forfeit what we own, we lose any sentimental associations. Perhaps pawning our valuables frees us in the same way a house fire destroys not only our worldly goods, but our attachment to what's gone.

Give yourself time to get better.

Grief rolled across the space between us like a wash of salt water.

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.

Writing isn't about the destination-writing is the journey that transforms the soul and gives meaning to all else.

Society values cooperation over independence, obedience over individuality, and niceness above all else.

What could smell better than supper being cooked by someone else?

My notion of an elegant table is you don't leave the knife sticking out of the mayonnaise jar.

Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.

There's really no such thing as an 'ex-cop' or a cop who's 'off-duty' or 'retired.' Once trained, once indoctrinated, a cop is always alert, assessing reality in terms of its potential for illegal acts.

For the record, I'd like to say that I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I have a chance to get even first" Kinsey Millhone, V is for Vengeance

There's nothing quite as irksome as someone else's mess.

If I'd been listening closely, I'd have caught the sound of the gods having a great big old tee-hee at my expense.

Personally, I don't endorse the notion of mortality. It's fine for other folk, but I disapprove of the concept for me and my loved ones.

I made the rules I figured I could be the one to break them. I thought I would write about xenophobia, a hatred of foreigners. After I stated writing the story there was not a foreigner to be had. I did not want to just stick one in there so I could get a title out of it since it seemed like cheating. I never figured out how I could get out of this dilemma so I just called it X and weaved X traits into the story.

Sometimes I claim I write because I put in an application at Sears and they've never called back.