Sue Grafton Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them.

Sue Grafton
Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they're right—a chilling thought when you sit down to dinner with a family of five. All those potential killers passing their plates.

Sue Grafton
Writing is self-taught. Consulting other people only teaches you to depend on their reactions, which may or may not be legitimate. Quit looking for approval.... Learn to evaluate your own work with a dispassionate eye... the lessons you acquire will be all the more valuable because you've mastered your craft from within.

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

Sue Grafton
He had no sense of theater. His delivery was so slow and so methodical it was like reading the entire Bible through a microscope.

Sue Grafton
Mildred was a big woman, angry and insecure, an abrasive woman, who marched through life hoarding grudges like bad debts on which she could eventually collect.

Sue Grafton
She took a moment to stub out her cigarette, blowing the final stream of smoke to one side. This, for a smoker, constitutes etiquette.

Sue Grafton
Wherever there is sex, we work to create a relationship that's worthy of it.

Sue Grafton
Earlene's handshake consisted of laying her fingers passively across mine. It was like having a half pound of cooked linguini placed in your palm for safekeeping.

Sue Grafton
The hard thing about death is that nothing ever changes. The hard thing about life is that nothing stays the same.

Sue Grafton
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.

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

Sue Grafton
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.

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

Sue Grafton
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.

Sue Grafton
He tended to speak in doubtful tones, as if he weren't absolutely certain he was telling the truth.

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

Sue Grafton
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.

Sue Grafton
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.

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

Sue Grafton
A kid whose conscience is clear because he doesn't have one.

Sue Grafton
Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves.

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

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

Sue Grafton
This was a woman who didn't take death seriously. In its aftermath, she'd come along to do the dishes and tidy up the living room, but she probably wouldn't devote a lot of time to the hymn selection for the funeral service.

Sue Grafton