Quotes from A is for Alibi

Sue Grafton ·  308 pages

Rating: (133.3K votes)


“Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they're right - a chilling thought when you sit down to dinner with a family of five. All those potential killers passing their plates.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“You try to keep life simple but it never works, and in the end all you have left is yourself.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“I don't know what is love about and I'm not sure I believe in it anyway.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“People can hold out just so long and then they fold.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“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, quote from A is for Alibi



“A lot of people were mistaken about a lot of things.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“My own mystery, unplumed, undetected, was sorted into files that were neatly labeled but really didn't say much.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“There were pieces missing yet but they would fall into place and then maybe the whole of it would make sense.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“So far, I felt like I had a lapful of confetti and the notion of piecing it all together to make a picture seemed very remote indeed.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“Haven’t you ever heard of compromise?” “Oh sure,” I said. “That’s when you give away half the things you want. That’s when you give the other guy half of what’s rightfully yours. I’ve done that lots of times. It sucks.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi



“Vegas tends to affect me that way, some combination of tension and dread to which my body responds with all the symptoms of incipient flu.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“The basic characteristics of any good investigator are a plodding nature and infinite patience. Society has inadvertently been grooming women to this end for years.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“Except for cases that clearly involve a homicidal maniac, the police like to believe murders are committed by those we know and love, and most of the time they’re right—a chilling thought when you sit down to dinner with a family of five.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“I don’t know what love is about and I’m not sure I believe in it anyway.”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi


“A man in a nylon bikini, with that little knot sticking out in front, isn’t half as interesting as a man in a good-looking business suit. Charlie”
― Sue Grafton, quote from A is for Alibi



About the author

Sue Grafton
Born place: in Louisville, Kentucky
Born date April 24, 1940
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Do I dare Disturb the universe?”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Wasteland, Prufrock and Other Poems


“You are hierarchical. That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It’s a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all …” The rattling sounded again. “That was like ignoring cancer. I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing.”
― Octavia E. Butler, quote from Dawn


“Running my mouth has hurt enough people already - the least I can do is to shut up.”
― Hannah Harrington, quote from Speechless


“It was a bookstore, and he felt at home in bookstores, and he hadn’t had that feeling much lately. He was going to enjoy it. He pushed his way back through the racks of greeting cards and cat calendars, back to where the actual books were, his glasses steaming up and his coat dripping on the thin carpet. It didn’t matter where you were, if you were in a room full of books you were at least halfway home.”
― Lev Grossman, quote from The Magician's Land


“Even the good guys,' she said, 'can't win all the time.”
― Witi Ihimaera, quote from The Whale Rider


Interesting books

Der kleine Prinz
(1M)
Der kleine Prinz
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (Revised)
(17.5K)
Design of Everyday T...
by Donald A. Norman
Sleepwalk With Me and Other Painfully True Stories
(11.9K)
Sangre de tinta
(93.8K)
Sangre de tinta
by Cornelia Funke
A Dream of Red Mansions
(3K)
A Dream of Red Mansi...
by Cao Xueqin
The Gravity Between Us
(4.6K)
The Gravity Between...
by Kristen Zimmer

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.