Quotes from Sara Paretsky

Sometimes life seems so painful it hurts even to move my arms.

I realised I'd never climb Everest but thought I could still write a book.

I went to college at the University of Kansas, where I got a degree in political science.

No agent wants to see a book until he or she has decided whether to pursue the relationship.

walked in under the orange legs of the three-story Calder designed for Chicago's Federal Building. We pride ourselves in Chicago on our outdoor sculptures by famous artists. My favorite is the bronze wind chimes in front of the Standard Oil Building, but I have a secret fondness for Chagall's mosaics in front of the First National Bank. My artist friends tell me they are banal.

Early to bed, early to rise, leaves me cranky with rings under my eyes.

I guess my ideals died the hardest. It's often that way with the children of immigrants. We need to buy the dream so bad we sometimes can't wake up.

When is thirty is a fond memory, the more days that pass without exercise the worse you feel going back to it. Then too, I'm undisciplined in a way that makes it easier to exercise than to diet, and the running helps keep my weight down.

The valley of regrets can pull you down into its quicksand bottom: it's best not to linger there.

I could hear her [Vic's Italian mother] saying, "Yes, Vic, you are pretty -- but pretty is no good. Any girl can be pretty -- but to take care of yourself you must have brains. And you must have a job, a profession. You must work.

The boy had clearly been dead for some time--the police could wait another few more minutes for him.

You? You're no more a detective than I am a ballet dancer," he exclaimed. "I'd like to see you in tights and a tutu.

pulling my leg. Well, don't stay alone here too late

Perfect love casts out fear, we are told. None of us is capable of perfect love, but as we help each other along this difficult journey which is life, the love we bear for one another does ease our burdens. And

No doubt Gervase Fen or Peter Wimsey would immediately have grasped the vital clue revealing the identity of the murderer. But to me it looked like wreckage.

1933–34 World's Fair—the Century of Progress. The history of Sally Rand at the fair, and her support of African-Americans and of all out-of-work people, merits a bigger story than I gave her.

The financial databases didn't show any buzz about whatever unique hardware Reggie had created. It could be that he was successfully keeping a lid on it. Or maybe, despite his bold speech, his Skyrocket had proved a dud

Perfect love casts out fear, we are told. None of us is capable of perfect love, but as we help each other along this difficult journey which is life, the love we bear for one another does ease our burdens. And even in death, that love binds us together; truly, in death, we are not divided.

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.

When you're struggling to survive, no one gets to label you a coward, not even you yourself in your private thoughts.

Some men can only admire independent women at a distance.

about your actions. You keep me totally in

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.

Now I've heard everyhing, I thought. Hired to find a person so her boyfriend would go to business school.