Sue Grafton Quotes

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.

Who knows what part we play in other people's dreams?

Too much virtue has a corrupting effect.

Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between being cautious and being dead.

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

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

There are laws for everything except the harm families do.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

I started writing seriously when I was 18, wrote my first novel when I was 22, and I've never stopped writing since.

I've never written about my husband, Steve, or any of my children because I know them all too well. I see them in all their complexities which makes them impossible to render on the printed page.

Of the first seven novels I wrote, numbers four and five were published. Numbers one, two, three, six, and seven, have never seen the light of day... and rightly so.

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.

Give yourself time to get better.

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

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

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

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.

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

People get careless when they're feeling safe.

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.

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

Smile. It gives your face something to do.

grief is an illness I can't recover from.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Grief is as contagious as a yawn.

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

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

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

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.

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

Let’s face it, life is trivial, and my guess is that dying imparts very little wisdom on those in process.

nothing wrong with a lie or two when the situation demanded it

I did an about-face and veered into the sandwich shop. What I ordered is none of your business, but it was really good.

There's only so much room at the top of the heap. The rest of us are fill dirt.

my mother died of an overdose of sleeping pills after extensive surgery so that the cause of death was probably listed as despair.

People always love it when you say their dogs are nice. Just shows you how out of touch they are.

All the little birdies had flown out of this man's tree.

The tricky part of any lie is trying to figure out how you'd behave if you were innocent.

I'm a born liar myself and I know how it's done. You stick as close to the truth as you can. You pretend to volunteer a few bits of information, but the facts are all carefully selected for effect.