Sue Taylor Grafton (born April 24, 1940) is a contemporary American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the 'alphabet series' ("A" Is for Alibi, etc.) featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C.W. Grafton, she has said the strongest influence on her crime novels is author Ross Macdonald. Prior to success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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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.
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.
Everything happens for a reason, but that doesn't mean there's a point.
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.
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 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.
Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.
If high heels were so wonderful, men would be wearing them.
If you're unhappy, change something.
It's disconcerting to realize how little you have to say to someone who once occupied such a prominent place in your bed.
Lucky is the spouse who dies first, who never has to know what survivors endure.
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.
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.
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.
People get careless when they're feeling safe.
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.
Pretending to be 'normal' is a lot harder than you think.
Some people can't see the color red. That doesn't mean it isn't there.
The hard thing about death is that nothing ever changes. The hard thing about life is that nothing stays the same.
The memory is like twin orbiting stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what's evident forever affected by the gravity of what's concealed.
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's a certain class of people who will do you in and then remain completely mystified by the depth of your pain.
There's always something else. That's what makes life so much fun.
Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.
Too many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.
We all need to look into the dark side of our nature- that's where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we're busy denying.
What could smell better than supper being cooked by someone else?
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.
You never know which people will affect your life.
You try to keep life simple but it never works, and in the end all you have left is yourself.
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(April 24 is also the birthday of Anthony Trollope and Robert Penn Warren.)
Categories: Quotes of the day, Sue Grafton
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