Sue Grafton Quotes

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

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

“Smile. It gives your face something to do.”

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

“It's pitiful to have a life in which junk food is awarded the same high status as sex.”

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

“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.”

“You never know which people will affect your life.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.”

“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.”

“I love being single. It's almost like being rich.”

“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.”

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

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

“Pretending to be 'normal' is a lot harder than you think.”

“A woman should never, never, never be financially dependent to anyone, especially a man, because the minute you were dependent, you could be abused.”

“I don’t want her to have a cat because she’ll end up talking baby talk to the cat. That’s the way it is, and how can a P. I. do that?”

“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.”

“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.”

“Our family histories are like fairy tales we're told from a very early age. In the tale, we're cast as hero or victim, as the infant rescued or abandoned, discounted or deified. From this we form an image of ourselves and our relationship to the world. Often it's a story we act out over and over again, trying to make the ending come out right instead of the way it did.”