Sue Grafton Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

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
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.

Sue Grafton
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.

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

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

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

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
Clouds were piled up like heads of cauliflower in a roadside stand.

Sue Grafton
She was short and round, and looked like someone whose eating habits had long ago outstripped any fat-burning activities.

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

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

Sue Grafton
No one with a happy childhood ever amounts to much in this world. They are so well adjusted, they never are driven to achieve anything.

Sue Grafton
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.

Sue Grafton
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.

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

Sue Grafton
You're never going to have to watch Kinsey Millhone go through menopause.

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
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.

Sue Grafton
Being with him was like being in a crowded elevator, stuck between floors.

Sue Grafton
All of us are subjected to somebody else's power at some point. So once in a while you kiss ass. So what? Either you make your peace with that early, or you end up living your life as a crank and a misfit.

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
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.

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

Sue Grafton