Quotes from Sara Gran

You cannot follow another's footsteps to the truth," Silette wrote. "A hand can point the way. But the hand is not the teaching. The finger that points the way is not the way. The mystery is a pathless land, and each detective must cut her own trail through a cruel territory. "Believe nothing. Question everything. Follow only the clues.

as if we both weren't crying, "this guy, he says, 'Be grateful for every scar life inflicts on you.' He says, 'Where we're unhurt is where we are false. Where we're wounded and healed is where our real self gets to show itself.' That's where you get to show who you are.

Make your choices wisely, ma'moiselle. The mysteries you leave will last for lifetimes after you are gone.

Now," I said, "why don't you come with me and see what I do? Because obviously you don't trust me. And I want you to trust me, Leon," I lied. "It's important to me that you trust me." I didn't care if Leon trusted me. But I did want him to keep paying me.

We can take it. Not everyone can. But I'd rather have the truth, ugly as it is, over every beautiful lie in the world. Because I seen too many times where the lies end up. Here. There.

No one will save you," Silette said from his rooftop. "No one will come. You are alone in your search; no friend, no lover, no God from above will come to your aid. Your mysteries are yours alone.

And Merritt, I saw now, had figured out the ultimate puzzle—how to live forever. How to leave enough of yourself behind, even if it was scattered in little pieces, that your presence on the earth was no longer temporary, but permanent.

There are no coincidences. Only

Sometimes I don't get people. For people like Leon it was always someone else's job to bring the metal detector or the magnifying glass or pony up the fingerprint dust.

In January I had a proposal due to my boss, Leon Fields, on a new project.

The truth is a funny thing," Constance said. "Just when you think you've got a hold on it, it slips away.

There was an energy to Los Angeles that was sharp and would cut you if you didn't recognize it. Every grain of sand in the beaches and desert buried under the city was a little razor, ready and willing to wound.

I ignored the bit about him being hard to love, which described everyone, ever. Hard to love was a pretty good definition of humanity in general.

I didn't tell her I'd been there. I didn't tell her I was still there. I didn't tell her: I hate myself that much every day. I didn't tell her: the only thing that saved me is gone and never coming back. I didn't tell her: I will be there again, and I will be there so often I will come to believe it's my natural habitat.

mystery is like a termite: even if you don't know it's there, it creates holes in your foundation, leaving you off-kilter and unsupported, never understanding why your house is such a frightening and confusing place to be.

There are no coincidences. Just opportunities you're too dumb to see, doors you've been too blind to step through. And for every one you miss there's some poor fucking soul who's been left behind, waiting for someone to come along and show him the way out.

Now that he wasn't trying to be frightening, Terrell's good nature shone, and he grinned as he smashed up my truck.

It wasn't until months later that I would look back and realize that, most likely, I had killed the magazine dealer myself.

Psalm 52:3: "You love evil rather than good, and falsehood rather than truth.

I wasn't possessed—I was insane!

Be grateful for every scar life inflicts on you.' He says, 'Where we're unhurt is where we are false. Where we're wounded and healed is where our real self gets to show itself.' That's where you get to show who you are.

Because this, for better or worse, is exactly where the truth lies--at the intersection of the forgotten and the ignored, in the neighborhood of all we have tried to forget.