Sue Grafton Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

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

Sue Grafton
I know there are people who believe you should forgive and forget. For the record, I'd like to say I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I'm given the opportunity to get even first.

Sue Grafton
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.

Sue Grafton
It's like people think just because you go to church you're not all that bright. I mean just because I'm a born-again doesn't mean I lost IQ points.

Sue Grafton
She thought she was married to him, but it turned out the warranty hadn't run out on his first wife.

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

Sue Grafton
Memory is subject to a filtering process that we don't always recognize and can't always control. We remember what we can bear and we block what we cannot.

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

Sue Grafton
God save us from the people who want to do what's best for us.

Sue Grafton
If you're interested in low wages, a bookstore ranks below retail clothing sales, except the hours are worse.

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

Sue Grafton
In my opinion, there's no condition in life that can't be ameliorated by a dose of junk food.

Sue Grafton
I showered and shampooed. I even shaved the requisite legs and armpits just in case I fell in a swoon and one or the other was exposed to view.

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

Sue Grafton
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.

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
The Latin term pro bono, as most attorneys will attest, roughly translated means for boneheads and applies to work done without charge.

Sue Grafton
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)

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

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
It never pays to deal with the flyweights of the world. They take far too much pleasure in thwarting you at every turn.

Sue Grafton
I hate nature. I really do. Nature is composed entirely of sticks, dirt, fall-down places, biting and stinging things, and savageries too numerous to list. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Man has been building cities since the year oughty-ought, just to get away from this stuff.

Sue Grafton
Built into bad news is that sense of profound disbelief. The mind struggles to absorb the bare facts, defending itself against the larger implications.

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
When all else fails, cleaning house is the perfect antidote to most of life's ills.

Sue Grafton
He smelled like something that spent the winter in a cave.

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

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

Sue Grafton
You can't save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don't appreciate your interfering with the drama they've created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don't want to change.

Sue Grafton