Quote

I spent the first twenty years of my writing career preparing for the mystery genre, which is my favorite literary form.

Sue Grafton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sue Grafton
Age: 77 †
Born: 1940
Born: April 24
Died: 2017
Died: December 28
Actor
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Louisville
Kentucky
Sue Taylor Grafton
Career
Preparing
Careers
Literary
Form
Genre
Firsts
Twenty
First
Twenties
Writing
Favorite
Years
Spent
Mystery
Selflessness

More quotes by Sue Grafton

Image
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
Image
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 possible.
Sue Grafton
Image
There's nothing quite as irksome as someone else's mess.
Sue Grafton
Image
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.
Sue Grafton
Image
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.
Sue Grafton
Image
There's really no such thing as an 'ex-cop' or a cop who's 'off-duty' or 'retired.' Once trained, once indoctrinated, a cop is always alert, assessing reality in terms of its potential for illegal acts.
Sue Grafton
Image
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.
Sue Grafton
Image
Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves.
Sue Grafton
Image
Sometimes I claim I write because I put in an application at Sears and they've never called back.
Sue Grafton
Image
The struggle is what teaches you.
Sue Grafton
Image
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
Image
You never know which people will affect your life.
Sue Grafton
Image
That's the way the system works. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you.
Sue Grafton
Image
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
Image
Age plays cruel tricks on the human face all our repressed feelings become visible on the surface, where they harden like a mask.
Sue Grafton
Image
I've never written about my husband, Steve, or any of my children because I know them all too well. I see them in all their complexities which makes them impossible to render on the printed page.
Sue Grafton
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There is no sound so terrible as a man's sorrow for his own death.
Sue Grafton