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For the record, I'd like to say that I'm a big fan of forgiveness as long as I have a chance to get even first" Kinsey Millhone, V is for Vengeance
Sue Grafton -
People get careless when they're feeling safe.
Sue Grafton
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Emotion doesn't travel in a straight line. Like water, our feelings trickle down through cracks and crevices, seeking out the little pockets of neediness and neglect, the hairline fractures in our character usually hidden from public view.
Sue Grafton -
Having reached the halfway mark in the alphabet, my prime focus is on writing each new book as well as I can.
Sue Grafton -
Of the first seven novels I wrote, numbers four and five were published. Numbers one, two, three, six, and seven, have never seen the light of day... and rightly so.
Sue Grafton -
It is a truth of human nature that we can ponder life's mysteries for only so long before we lose interest and move on to something else.
Sue Grafton -
I caution writers all the time to slow down and pay more attention to the work in front of them than to the end result. I don't think you write one book and get anywhere. I think you write five books and then maybe you are finally on the right path.
Sue Grafton -
Who knows what part we play in other people's dreams?
Sue Grafton
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Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.
Sue Grafton -
Grief is as contagious as a yawn.
Sue Grafton -
I was an English major in college with minors in Fine Arts and Humanities.
Sue Grafton -
People talk about dysfunctional families; I've never seen any other kind.
Sue Grafton -
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 -
So much of the past in encapsulated in the odds and ends. Most of us discard more information about ourselves than we ever care to preserve. Our recollection of the past is not simply distorted by our faulty perception of events remembered but skewed by those forgotten. 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.
Sue Grafton
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The Jungian therapist taught me the difference between the ego and the shadow. I realized I'd been so busy being a good girl that I'd completely detached from my shadow. It's something we all have, and it's where all the creative juices are.
Sue Grafton -
School was a source of great suffering to me, but once I learned to read, I disappeared into books, where I was a happy visitor to all the worlds that sprang full-blown from the printed page.
Sue Grafton -
Dream big but think small.
Sue Grafton -
I made the rules I figured I could be the one to break them. I thought I would write about xenophobia, a hatred of foreigners. After I stated writing the story there was not a foreigner to be had. I did not want to just stick one in there so I could get a title out of it since it seemed like cheating. I never figured out how I could get out of this dilemma so I just called it X and weaved X traits into the story.
Sue Grafton -
My primary lesson, however, was that I'm a solo writer, happiest when I'm making all the executive decisions. I've always been willing to rise or fall on my own merits.
Sue Grafton -
I spent the first twenty years of my writing career preparing for the mystery genre, which is my favorite literary form.
Sue Grafton
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Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves.
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 -
Lucky is the spouse who dies first, who never has to know what survivors endure.
Sue Grafton -
Personally, I don't endorse the notion of mortality. It's fine for other folk, but I disapprove of the concept for me and my loved ones.
Sue Grafton