Karin Slaughter Quotes

She asked him, "Everything all right?" "It's good right now." He rubbed her back with his hand. "What did the shrink say?" Claire waited until the bartender had returned to his corner. "She said that I'm not being forthcoming about my emotions." "That's not like you at all." They smiled at each other. Another old argument that wasn't worth having anymore.

Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest.

Clair watched the young man pour Paul's Scotch with a previously unseen professionalism. Her wedding ring, her gentle brush-offs, and her outright rejection had been minor obstacles compared to the big no of another man kissing her cheek.

Feminism has been so co-opted, but the fact is, feminism benefits men as well.

Flannery O'Connor was a revelation for me. When I read her, I was very young, and I didn't understand what she was doing. I didn't see any of the Catholicism or any of the social stuff.

It didn't take a Harvard economist to figure out that it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper spending money on helping keep kids safe when they were younger than it was to put them in jail when they were older. That was the American way, though. Spend a million dollars rescuing some kid who's fallen down a well, but God forbid you spend a hundred bucks up front to cap the well so the kid never falls down it in the first place.

When your father died, I remember standing at his grave and thinking, This is the place where I can leave my grief. It wasn't immediately, of course, but I had somewhere to go, and every time I visited the cemetery, I felt like when I got back into my car, a tiny little bit of grief was gone.

She felt it snap into her head like a slide loading into a projector.

In a rare moment of candor, he had once told her that being in a library was like sitting down at a table laid with all his favorite foods but not being able to eat any of them. And he hated himself for it.

She asked, "Was that really your dinner - two hot dogs and a Krispy Kreme doughnut?" "Four doughnuts." "What does your cholesterol look like?" "I guess it's white like what they show in the commercials.

My typical morning involves some time on the treadmill, but obviously I skip that a lot. Mostly, I wake up, check my email, then get to work on the various interviews and questions and phone calls that come with being an author.

I'm really boring. I get up early. I go to bed early. I don't smoke or drink. I mean, I'll eat a cupcake. I'm just not a crazy, stay-out-all-night sort of person. I love writing.

It was odd how you could love something so much, but forget about it when it wasn't right under your nose.

There were a few things she knew about Will Trent. He was tall, at least six-three, with a runner's lean body and the most beautiful legs she had ever seen on a man. His mother had been killed when he was less than a year old. He'd grown up in a children's home and never been adopted. He was a special agent with the GBI. He was one of the smartest men she had ever met, and he was so dyslexic that, as far as she could tell, he read no higher than a second-grade level.

When somebody dies, you forget they're an asshole.

I set the goal of getting a book contract by age thirty.

Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation's sovereignty.

Claire slumped down into the overstuffed chair in her office as she watched her sister go through Paul's collection of files. Lydia seemed energized by the prospect of uncovering more lurid details, but Claire felt as though she was suffocating under the weight of every new revelation. She couldn't believe that only two days ago, she had watched Paul's coffin as it was lowered into the ground. Her body might as well have been buried along with him. Her skin felt desiccated. She had a deep chill in her bones. Even blinking was a challenge, because the temptation to keep her eyes closed was almost too much to resist.

Nothing ever truly faded. Time only dulled the edges.

I know the cadence of the language and the voice of Atlanta because I've lived here for so long.

There were good guys and bad guys, and to protect one, you did what you had to do to the other.

Claire hates you now. She believes me. She will never, ever take you back.
We are never ever ever getting back together. Taylor Swift. How many times had Dee played that song after she caught Heath Carmichael cheating

Trust me, sweetheart, there is a reason centuries of fathers have fought brutal wars to protect the concept of Immaculate Conception.

If you have to say you're not doing something, then you probably are.

Long Gone is the type of book that should come with a warning. It's a compulsively readable, highly addictive story. The ending will leave you breathless.

You couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about the missing teenage girl. Sixteen years old. White. Middle class. Very pretty. No one ever seemed quite as outraged when an ugly woman went missing.

You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.

My court-appointed therapist would say I was trying to fill a hole." "Is that what you call your vagina?" Claire chuckled under her breath.

Amanda was probably in her mid-fifties, a small woman, maybe five-three on a good day. Her attitude filled the room, and she walked with a swagger that rivaled a bullfighter's. She wore a simple diamond ring on her wedding finger, though Will knew she wasn't currently married. She had no children, or perhaps she had eaten them when they were young.

Some people are born with a hole inside them. They spend their lives trying to fill it. Sometimes it's pills, sometimes it's Jesus.

Acid filled Sara's mouth.

It wasn't fair.

That's what Sara wanted to say. To scream at the top of her lungs.

It just wasn't fair.

Lena wasn't strong. She would bend, not break. She would recover from this tragedy the same easy way she recovered from every other tragedy before.

Even if she lost Jared, Lena would always know what it felt like to have his child growing inside of her. She could always hold her baby's hand and think of holding Jared's. She could see her child laugh and learn and grow and play sports and do school projects and graduate from college and Lena would always, always remember her husband. She would see Jared in her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. On her deathbed, she would find peace in the knowledge that they had made something beautiful together. That even in death, they would both go on living.

"Sara," Faith said. "What's happening here?"

Sara wiped her eyes, angry that she was back in the same dark place she'd started at this morning. "Why does everything come so damn easy to her?" She struggled to speak. Her throat clenched around every word that wanted to come out of her mouth. "Everything just opens up, and she always walks through unscathed and - " Sara had to stop for breath. "It's just so easy for her. She always has it so goddamn easy.

It's hard because people often don't recognise shyness; they think it's just someone being rude. I have had to work to overcome that, especially if I'm meeting my readers at author events, because I don't want them to think I'm snooty or rude.

That's the problem with life, Sam. If you're not rising, you're falling.

Because I said so." She paused again. "Sweetheart, I know you're an adult, but adults are like vampires. The older ones are much more powerful.

So far, she had nothing but fear and the nauseating sensation that the hour would pass and she would be just as helpless as when she'd first left the Fuller house. The same problems that had plagued her before were on an endless loop that took up every conscious thought. Her mother: persistently unavailable. Huckleberry: worthless. Jacob Mayhew: probably working for the congressman. Fred Nolan: ditto, or maybe he had his own agenda. Congressman Johnny Jackson: Paul's secret uncle. Powerful and connected, and duplicitous enough to stand with the Kilpatrick family during press conferences, as if he had no idea what had happened to their precious child. Adam Quinn: possible friend or foe.

Forever was never as long as you thought it was.

No amount of flowers or pretty compliments could ever measure up to a man who did housework.

That doesn't sound invisible to me." "I'm saying it wrong, then." Lydia searched for a better way to explain. "She was always holding herself back. She was cocaptain, not captain. She could've dated the quarterback, but she dated his brother instead. She could've been top in her class, but she'd purposefully turn in a paper late or miss an assignment so she'd fall closer to the middle. She would know about Mauna Kea, but she would say Everest because winning would bring too much attention.

Like every Southern writer, I thought that I needed to write the next 'Gone With the Wind.'

Love, like water, always flowed down the path of least resistance.

My dad believed in scaring us as we were growing up. Scaring the boys who wanted to date us more.

I can clearly trace my passion for reading back to the Jonesboro, Georgia, library, where, for the first time in my life, I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of books.

A few years ago when she'd read Paul several passages from Fifty Shades of Grey, they'd both giggled like teenagers.
"The biggest fantasy in that book," Paul had said, "is that he changes in the end.

I never felt isolated; I just liked being alone. I think that some people are good at being alone, and some people aren't, and as a child, I really liked it.

Ultimately, I'm in control of what's going on in the books, so I can back off, if it's scaring me too much.

I've always been interested in violence, even as a teenager. I loved 'Helter Skelter' and books like that.

I've always preferred crazy to stupid. Stupid can break your heart.

He was safe because she would never really give all of herself to him." "I

Dad. I knew that was it. No more holding my hand. No more sitting in my lap. No more throwing your arms around my waist when I walked through the front door or standing on my shoes while we danced around the kitchen. I would be the bank now. The ride to your friend's house. The critic of your biology homework. The signature on the check mailed away with your college application.

Will hated those cops, had worked more than a few cases where he'd gotten them kicked off the force. You couldn't say you were one of the good guys if you did the same thing the bad guys did.

There is kindness in so many unexpected places

This seemed to be how dads taught their boys to be men, but there had to be a point, maybe early on, when they were able to hold their hands. One tiny one engulfed by one big one.

Her capacity for detail was astounding, if not highly annoying during arguments.

I paid for my name a lot when I was growing up because other kids teased me.

The thing about having a bad reputation is that folks will believe just about anything people say about you.

In Abigail's experience, women certainly loved their mothers, but there was always some kind of thing that lived between them. Envy? History? Hate? This thing, whatever it was, made girls gravitate toward their fathers. For his part, Hoyt Bentley had relished spoiling his only child. Beatrice, Abigail's mother, had resented the lost attention. Beautiful women did not like competition, even if it was from their own daughters.

Yeah, I can imagine with the funeral and all, this is the last thing you want to be dealing with right now. Like I said, my condolences." Mayhew took his own deep breath, his far more raspy. "We've got a nutshell, but we're still filling in some blanks. You're not the first person in the county to have this kind of thing happen. We suspect it's a gang of young males who read the obituaries, find out when the funerals are, then Google Earth the house and figure out whether it's worth robbing.

I hadn't planned on sounding like J.J. from Good Times, but that's the gist.

A lot of novels use crime as a stepping stone to talk about greater issues. So I just think of myself as a writer.

The older sister could have been an overachiever who cast the kind of shadow in which nothing could grow.

A man who has grown up in an orphanage cannot take a dog to the pound.

Even if it is a Chihuahua.

Reading is power. Reading is life.

Sexual predators were like cockroaches. For every one you saw, there were twenty more hiding behind the walls.

If you love someone, you don't go out of your way to hurt them. You don't torture them. You don't terrify them or make them live in constant fear. That's not how love works. It's not how normal people work.

People forget that writers start off being readers. We all love it when we find a terrific read, and we want to let people know about it.

Broken:
Never underestimate the power of a shared history.

Dyadic completion," Paul would've told Claire. "The human brain tends to assume that, if there's a victim, there has to be a villain.

Claire jumped right into the story. "There was a Thunderbolt cable

The only reason my daughter has not come home is because someone is keeping her." Keeping her.

Mrs. Scott, do you mind my asking why the alarm wasn't on?" This was from Mayhew. He had taken out a notebook and pen. His shoulders were hunched, as if someone had asked him to mimic a character from a Raymond Chandler novel.

Curiosity broke her earlier resolve. "Have you ever been tested?"
"No." He stood behind Sara, holding the camera in front so she could see. "Zoom here," he said, flicking the toggle.
"You could probably-"
"This is macro."
"Will-"
"Super macro." He kept talking over her until she gave up. "Here's where you adjust for color. This is light. Anti-shake. Red-eye." He clicked through the features like a photography instructor.
Sara Finally relented. "Why don't I point and you shoot?"
"All right." His back was stiff, and she could tell that he was irritated.
"I'm sorry I-"
"Please don't apologize."
Sara held his gaze for a few moments longer, wishing she could fix this. There was nothing to say if he wouldn't even let her apologize.

Claire lunged toward her desk. She opened the drawer. Lydia's file was still hidden inside. Claire's relief was so pronounced that she wanted to cry. She touched her fingers to her cheek. She was crying. Her tear ducts were on constant standby for anything that would send them over. Instead of giving in to it, Claire shut the drawer. She wiped her eyes. She stood up. She straightened her shirt as she made her way to the kitchen.

When I was little, my grandmother would take me to church with her, and she would introduce me to people.

I'm not somebody who believes in evil.

I think being a woman and writing frankly about violence has gotten me some attention, and as someone who wants people to read my books, I can't complain about that attention, but it does puzzle me that this is something reviewers focus on.

Being a Southerner, I'm interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.

Paul still had feelings for Claire - at least inasmuch as he was capable of feeling anything. He had put the pillow under her head. He'd slid her wedding ring back on her finger. He had taken off her shoes. He had charged the Tesla. All of these things had taken time, which meant that Paul placed importance on them. Instead of rushing Lydia out the door, he had risked exposure by taking care of Claire.

I'm extremely introverted. I used to think it was shyness, but I got over that, so it must be door No. 2. It's still hard for me to be away from home much, and I have to make sure I get lots of time alone in my room when I'm touring.

Sweetheart, I know you're an adult, but adults are like vampires. The older ones are much more powerful. Claire

She said, "Where is Lydia?" "I'm calling you from a comsat phone with a scrambler. Do you know what that is?" "Why the fuck would I know what that is?" "Comsat is an abbreviation for a series of communication satellites," he explained, his voice maddeningly pedantic. "The phone relays calls through geostationary satellites instead of land-based cell towers. The scrambler masks the number and location, which means this call can't be traced, not even by the NSA.

Considering what Pauline's been through ... " Will began, then stopped himself. "She's not very nice."
"She's a cold-blooded bitch."
"I'm surprised I haven't fallen in love with her.

I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.

Sara studied him. "Is that a Chihuahua behind your back?"
"No, I'm just happy to see you"
Sara gave him a confused smile, and he reluctantly showed her Betty.

I think that people do things for a reason - that we have mental illness, that we have genetic wiring that can get triggered by certain environmental factors.

[ ... ]but instead of apologizing, I said, 'It's your own fault for playing tennis.

Having a teenager is like having a really, really shitty roommate. They eat all your food and steal your clothes and take money out of your purse and borrow your car without asking.

An autopsy was an act of violence itself, the ultimate invasion. Every body tells a story. A person's life and death can be exposed in all their glory and shame simply by looking beneath the skin.

You were wrong," she told Paul, because he had been a pedantic asshole who thought he was right about everything. "You said I would be dead in a gutter by now. You said I was worthless. You said that no one would believe me because I didn't matter.

She had seen this before. She knew that you could put it all in a little box and close it up later, that you could go on with your life if you didn't sleep too much, didn't breathe too much, didn't live too much so that death came back and snatched you away for the taking.

If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be a watchmaker. I like putting puzzles together, and that is what a watch is, figuring out how all the gears and everything else works together. I'm patient and good at focusing on a single task.

If you wanted to know shit about a woman, all you had to do was ask the woman who was pretending to be her friend.

When I'm on a good go, I can do 12, 13 hours of writing.

I read extensively about serial killers and all sorts of things people get up to.

cunt on the blackboard.

Why did it have to be her?

Rage had consumed her. She hadn't wanted to just murder him. She had wanted to empty her gun into his chest. And then she wanted to fill the holes with burning oil and dance in his still-warm blood. She had felt dead inside.

When you read a book, you are letting another person distract your thoughts and work your emotions. If they are adept, there's nothing better than turning off and getting lost.

I think that characters who are nice all the time and who you sympathize with can get really boring.

No matter what happened to you, no matter what horrors you endured when you were taken away, you will always be my pretty little girl.

He's morbidly obese. He's unusually bloated. There are needle marks on his abdomen and thighs that indicate he's an insulin-dependent diabetic. His diet was fast food and Skittles.

Collier looked skeptical. "So Harding conveniently slipped into a diabetic coma during the middle of a death match?