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Pretending to be 'normal' is a lot harder than you think.
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My notion of an elegant table is you don't leave the knife sticking out of the mayonnaise jar.
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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.
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You write one book and you're ready for fame and fortune. I don't know that people are spending the time and attention on learning how to write-which takes years. Everybody sees the success stories.
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There was an author who titled his books by days of the weeks and another one that used colors. Then there was Edward Gorey who wrote the book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, about the untimely death of 26 Victorian children, each representing a letter of the alphabet. I thought what a great way to link the titles.
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You can't make anyone love you and you can't stop anyone from dying.
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I write because it's all I know how to do. Writing is my anchor and my purpose. My life is informed by writing, whether the work is going well or I'm stuck in the hell of writer's block, which I'm happy to report only occurs about once a day.
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In my opinion, there's no condition in life that can't be ameliorated by a dose of junk food.
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It's disconcerting to realize how little you have to say to someone who once occupied such a prominent place in your bed.
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If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them.
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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.
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Having reached the halfway mark in the alphabet, my prime focus is on writing each new book as well as I can.
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Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.
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I attended the University of Louisville my freshman year, transferred to what was then Western Kentucky State Teachers College for my sophomore and junior years, and then graduated from the University of Louisville in the summer of 1961.
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Grief is as contagious as a yawn.
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You kill people you hate or you kill in rage or you kill to get even, but you don't kill someone you're indifferent to.
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Kinsey was never a lawyer. She's strictly blue collar.
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Too much virtue has a corrupting effect.
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I love being single. It's almost like being rich.
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any mystery writer is both magician and moralist ... two species of artist in short supply.
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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.
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I read the paper every day. There are certain subjects that will catch my attention. I have an entire file of articles. Of course I make up the story, especially since most criminals are not very smart and fictional crime must be clever. I have to make sure the story I am telling is interesting and realistic. In this book I went on line and found out the manners of codes. I thought it interesting to use them as a jumping off point.
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Dream big but think small.
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What could smell better than supper being cooked by someone else?