Sue Grafton Quotes
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The character of Rosie is based on a woman who used to live in the same apartment building I lived in many years ago. She's taken on a life of her own, of course.
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It's been my observation, after years in the [insurance] business, that a certain percent of the population simply can't resist the urge to cheat.
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He might be a man without character, but she was a woman without courage. Of the two, which was worse?
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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.
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The beauty of word processing, God bless my word processor, is that it keeps the plotting very fluid. The prose becomes like a liquid that you can manipulate at will. In the old days, when I typed, every piece of typing paper was like cast in concrete.
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Grief rolled across the space between us like a wash of salt water.
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God save us from the people who want to do what's best for us.
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I focus on the writing and let the rest of the process take care of itself. I've learned to trust my own instincts and I've also learned to take risks.
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The hard thing about death is that nothing ever changes. The hard thing about life is that nothing stays the same.
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I've never known anyone yet who doesn't suffer a certain restlessness when autumn rolls around... We're all eight years old again and anything is .
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My job as the writer is to fool you. Your job as the reader is to see if you can catch me at it.
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Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.
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If your mind isn't open, keep your mouth shut too.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Train yourself to listen to that small voice that tells us what's important and what's not.
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Life was reduced to its four basic elements: air, food, drink, and a good friend.
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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.
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Writing is a process and you must trust the process! Fear and anxiety are part of that process along with the enthusaism and the good days and the joy and the passion and the great hopes you have for a book. But when you run into problems, when you get stuck or scared, you must trust that that is part of how a book comes to pass, and what you need to do is get very still and quiet because Self will tell you how to get out of a hole you've dug for yourself.
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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.
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A woman should never, never, never be financially dependent to anyone, especially a man, because the minute you were dependent, you could be abused.
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Pretending to be 'normal' is a lot harder than you think.
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The struggle is what teaches you.