“The hardest thing about adolescence is that everything seems too big. There's no way to get context or perspective, ..... Pain and joy without limits. No one can live like that forever, so experience finally comes to our rescue. We come to know what we can endure, and also that nothing endures.”
―
Sara Paretsky,
Bleeding Kansas
“When you're struggling to survive, no one gets to label you a coward, not even you yourself in your private thoughts.” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“Some men can only admire independent women at a distance.” ― Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only
“A god who cares more about a little water on the head than my daughter's character is not a deity I want her to spend eternity with.” ― Sara Paretsky (Brush Back)
“about your actions. You keep me totally in” ― Sara Paretsky, Tunnel Vision
“his back to her. “Vic, how long’s it been?” “How’d you end up down here, Sid?” I asked. “I thought you knew better than to put yourself in the crosshairs.” “Nobody asks me to go out on the street anymore and I got me a weekend place down near Schererville.” He winked, meaning, I suppose, that he was actually living down in Indiana—a no-no for someone on Chicago’s payroll. Sid had been one of my dad’s last partners, after Tony had been redeemed from cop hell: my dad had been sent to West Englewood” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“You know, if Tony had turned you over his knee more often instead of spoiling you rotten, you'd be a happy housewife now, instead of playing at detective and making it harder for us to get our job done.But I'm a happy detective, Bobby, and I made a lousy housewife.” ― Sara Paretsky
“Now I've heard everyhing, I thought. Hired to find a person so her boyfriend would go to business school.” ― Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only
“It’s always struck me as the ultimate insult to pay to park at hospitals; they incarcerate your friends and relations in rooms that cost six or seven hundred dollars a day, then put a little sting in by charging a few extra bucks to visit them.” ― Sara Paretsky, Killing Orders
“One last question, son,” he said to Felix. “Who were you expecting to see back there?” “I—no one,” Felix stammered. “You asked where he was from,” McGivney said. “Where did you think that would be?” “I don’t know,” Felix said, shifting unhappily from foot to foot.” ― Sara Paretsky, Shell Game
“The decimation of Lebanon was showing up in Chicago as a series of restaurants and little shops, just as the destruction of Vietnam had been visible here a decade earlier. If you never read the news but ate out a lot you should be able to tell who was getting beaten up around the world.” ― Sara Paretsky, Killing Orders
“On NCIS or White Collar, I’d forcefully persuade a reluctant judge to issue a search warrant and then persuade my equally reluctant boss to give me access to a portable X-ray machine, and then I’d find Sebastian’s body and make an arrest—after a near-death escape from Nabiyev, whom I’d overpower despite his bigger size and more massive gun power. I wished I were a TV detective.” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“Ship,” he said absently. “A boat is something you haul aboard a ship.” ― Sara Paretsky, Deadlock
“wine! pizza! pasta!' V.I.” ― Sara Paretsky, Deadlock
“All the authors I read in those days—Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Sara Paretsky, and, God bless him, Tony Hillerman—opened my eyes in so many important ways. What I discovered was that most mysteries have a very simple story structure. It goes something like this: In a mystery, typically speaking, the story begins with something happening. Usually this is a crime; very often it’s a murder. Investigation follows. And answers are found. That’s it. No formula, but a structure. More importantly, a very flexible structure within which an author is free to do almost anything. Check out the range of the crime genre today. There are historical mysteries, humorous mysteries, philosophical mysteries, dark mysteries, cozy mysteries. Hell, these days you can throw in vampires and werewolves, if that’s what you like. The point is that the reach of the genre is so broad it can embrace any interest a writer or reader might have. I like this. It feels very egalitarian to me. There’s good reason the crime genre is called popular fiction.” ― William Kent Krueger, The William Kent Krueger Collection #1: Iron Lake, Boundary Waters, and Purgatory Ridge
“Kate Fansler.” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“She came over to me and held me close to her. “You are the daughter of my heart, Victoria. I know it’s not the same as having Gabriella, but the love is there” ― Sara Paretsky, Blood Shot
“maybe you are only a drop in a bucket—or a teaspoon in a desert—but there are some fragile plants that will die if your teaspoon goes away.” ― Sara Paretsky, Dead Land
“animadversions” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“When you're struggling to survive, no one gets to label you a coward, not even you yourself in your private thoughts.” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“Some men can only admire independent women at a distance.” ― Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only
“A god who cares more about a little water on the head than my daughter's character is not a deity I want her to spend eternity with.” ― Sara Paretsky (Brush Back)
“about your actions. You keep me totally in” ― Sara Paretsky, Tunnel Vision
“his back to her. “Vic, how long’s it been?” “How’d you end up down here, Sid?” I asked. “I thought you knew better than to put yourself in the crosshairs.” “Nobody asks me to go out on the street anymore and I got me a weekend place down near Schererville.” He winked, meaning, I suppose, that he was actually living down in Indiana—a no-no for someone on Chicago’s payroll. Sid had been one of my dad’s last partners, after Tony had been redeemed from cop hell: my dad had been sent to West Englewood” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“You know, if Tony had turned you over his knee more often instead of spoiling you rotten, you'd be a happy housewife now, instead of playing at detective and making it harder for us to get our job done.But I'm a happy detective, Bobby, and I made a lousy housewife.” ― Sara Paretsky
“Now I've heard everyhing, I thought. Hired to find a person so her boyfriend would go to business school.” ― Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only
“It’s always struck me as the ultimate insult to pay to park at hospitals; they incarcerate your friends and relations in rooms that cost six or seven hundred dollars a day, then put a little sting in by charging a few extra bucks to visit them.” ― Sara Paretsky, Killing Orders
“One last question, son,” he said to Felix. “Who were you expecting to see back there?” “I—no one,” Felix stammered. “You asked where he was from,” McGivney said. “Where did you think that would be?” “I don’t know,” Felix said, shifting unhappily from foot to foot.” ― Sara Paretsky, Shell Game
“The decimation of Lebanon was showing up in Chicago as a series of restaurants and little shops, just as the destruction of Vietnam had been visible here a decade earlier. If you never read the news but ate out a lot you should be able to tell who was getting beaten up around the world.” ― Sara Paretsky, Killing Orders
“On NCIS or White Collar, I’d forcefully persuade a reluctant judge to issue a search warrant and then persuade my equally reluctant boss to give me access to a portable X-ray machine, and then I’d find Sebastian’s body and make an arrest—after a near-death escape from Nabiyev, whom I’d overpower despite his bigger size and more massive gun power. I wished I were a TV detective.” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“Ship,” he said absently. “A boat is something you haul aboard a ship.” ― Sara Paretsky, Deadlock
“wine! pizza! pasta!' V.I.” ― Sara Paretsky, Deadlock
“All the authors I read in those days—Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Sara Paretsky, and, God bless him, Tony Hillerman—opened my eyes in so many important ways. What I discovered was that most mysteries have a very simple story structure. It goes something like this: In a mystery, typically speaking, the story begins with something happening. Usually this is a crime; very often it’s a murder. Investigation follows. And answers are found. That’s it. No formula, but a structure. More importantly, a very flexible structure within which an author is free to do almost anything. Check out the range of the crime genre today. There are historical mysteries, humorous mysteries, philosophical mysteries, dark mysteries, cozy mysteries. Hell, these days you can throw in vampires and werewolves, if that’s what you like. The point is that the reach of the genre is so broad it can embrace any interest a writer or reader might have. I like this. It feels very egalitarian to me. There’s good reason the crime genre is called popular fiction.” ― William Kent Krueger, The William Kent Krueger Collection #1: Iron Lake, Boundary Waters, and Purgatory Ridge
“Kate Fansler.” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
“She came over to me and held me close to her. “You are the daughter of my heart, Victoria. I know it’s not the same as having Gabriella, but the love is there” ― Sara Paretsky, Blood Shot
“maybe you are only a drop in a bucket—or a teaspoon in a desert—but there are some fragile plants that will die if your teaspoon goes away.” ― Sara Paretsky, Dead Land
“animadversions” ― Sara Paretsky, Brush Back
