Top 400 Grady Hendrix Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Does it make you feel superior to give them a diagnosis, to file them away in a little drawer? You know they’re bigger than that. If it were just a psychological problem we could find a cure.”

— Grady Hendrix

252. “We’re not a lynch mob, we’re a book club,” Kitty said.”

— Grady Hendrix

253. “And Marilyn and Heather and Dr. Carol probably hate me because they think I’ve committed the one sin we can’t forgive: lying down with your monster. They all think I’m another Chrissy Mercer.”

— Grady Hendrix

254. “Work burns the sickness from a man’s mind,” Warden Worth proclaimed. “It is the philosopher’s stone that transmutes the base metal of deviancy into the pure gold of obedience.”

— Grady Hendrix

255. “Because that’s exactly what he is,” Mercy said, coming out of the kitchen with a wine bottle and a bunch of iced tea glasses. “He’s thirty-seven years old and still works in a bar.”

— Grady Hendrix

256. “It didn’t matter what she did. Nothing mattered anymore. The world was broken.”

— Grady Hendrix

257. “Louise tried to think of how to explain death to a puppet.”

— Grady Hendrix

258. “First came Jaws by Peter Benchley, a novel about a stressed-out great white shark suffering from portion control issues. It sank its teeth into the New York Times Best-Seller List and hung on for an astonishing forty-five weeks.”

— Grady Hendrix

259. “Why are we more comfortable with fast, dramatic deaths than the slow decay most people get? After all, isn’t this why we fought so hard? To have the right to do what Michelle is doing right this minute?”

— Grady Hendrix

260. “Marjorie Fretwell once sucked a copperhead up in her vacuum cleaner because she didn’t know what to do with it and then she had to throw the whole vacuum away,” Kitty said. “Don’t talk to me about Marjorie Fretwell.”

— Grady Hendrix

261. “The kind of people who dressed up as Ricky Walker and marched around outside my house, who followed my foster mom to malls and tried to steal her used Kleenex for voodoo rituals. These are not logical thinkers.”

— Grady Hendrix

262. “It hurts me to talk about Billy like he’s a normal artist, exhibiting in galleries and negotiating with buyers.”

— Grady Hendrix

263. “In college, she didn’t take mushrooms or microdose acid and only kind of enjoyed the occasional glass of wine, and when she saw a person having a mental health crisis in the street, she gave them a lot of distance and the next time she needed to go down that street she tried to find another way.”

— Grady Hendrix

264. “She cried because at last it hit her that time only moves in one direction, no matter how hard we wish it wasn’t so.”

— Grady Hendrix

265. “This is also a book about vampires. They’re that iconic American archetype of the rambling man, wearing denim, wandering from town to town with no past and no ties. Think Jack Kerouac, think Shane, think Woody Guthrie. Think Ted Bundy.”

— Grady Hendrix

266. “That’s how you know you are real – one day you die.”

— Grady Hendrix

267. “Stealing the mail is a federal crime.”

— Grady Hendrix

268. “Mom,” she said. “What if I miss?” “Then you tried your best,” Patricia told her. “What if I break one of her windows?” Korey asked. “Then I’ll buy you a frozen yogurt on the way home,” Patricia said.”

— Grady Hendrix

269. “Are you going to do it?” she asked. “Hell, yeah,” Abby said. “Are you scared?” she asked. “Hell, yeah,” Abby said. “So why?” “Because I want to know if Dark Side of the Moon is actually profound.”

— Grady Hendrix

270. “You’ve lied all your life and now your lies are hurting my little girl.” Aunt Honey.”

— Grady Hendrix

271. “For years, Amy had wondered what would happen if she stopped fighting and let go. For as long as she remembered, she had been scared of how far she would fall if she stopped struggling.”

— Grady Hendrix

272. “The police think all kind of things,” Mrs. Greene said. “Doesn’t necessarily make them true.”

— Grady Hendrix

273. “You can only hope that by the time you come to your senses they haven’t done too much damage. In Julia’s case, by the time she woke up he’d sold her franchise rights, cleaned out her bank accounts, and left her with nothing.”

— Grady Hendrix

274. “People are going to live longer in the future,” she said. “We might still be alive.” “But we won’t know how to set the clocks on our VCRs and we’ll be old and hate young people and vote Republican like my parents,” Gretchen said.”

— Grady Hendrix

275. “Are you kidding?” He smiles. “This whole thing smelled like ratshit from the word go.”

— Grady Hendrix

276. “It is that bad, sir,’ he said. ‘I served with Chinese Gordon and lost everything in Khartoum. My mates. My fortune. My arms and legs.’ “‘They’ll grow back,’ I said. “‘They will?’ he asked, through his tears. “’Of course they will. I’m a doctor. You just have to give them time and... and drink more whiskey.”

— Grady Hendrix

277. “Everything her mom had built, everything she had spent her life creating, everything that meant so much to her, it was gone. The rain and mud and the feet of strangers had destroyed it all.”

— Grady Hendrix

278. “Isn’t that how every serial killer gets away with it for so long?” Patricia asked. “Everyone ignores the little things and Ted Bundy keeps killing women until finally someone does what they should have done in the first place and connects the little things that didn’t add up, but by then it’s too late.”

— Grady Hendrix

279. “Maybe this is what makes a life? Responsibilities, obligations, who we tie ourselves to?”

— Grady Hendrix

280. “Don’t worry, Grace,” Patricia said. “When we go off, we’ll be fully cocked.”

— Grady Hendrix

281. “So much for explaining death the healthy way.”

— Grady Hendrix

282. “Nice clean cut,” Santos said, and Louise almost said thank you but managed to stop herself.”

— Grady Hendrix

283. “Amy clawed at the maple flooring but only succeeded in peeling off one of her fingernails like a wet postage stamp.”

— Grady Hendrix

284. “Think of us what you will,” she thought, “we made mistakes, and probably scarred our children for life, and we froze sandwiches, and forgot car pool, and got divorced. But when the time came, we went the distance.”

— Grady Hendrix

285. “No,” she says. “You have to understand. Our deaths mean more. They’re bigger. More symbolic. They have resonance. Don’t you ever stop and ask yourself why?”

— Grady Hendrix

286. “I sit like that for a while, my tears dripping onto Fine’s leaves. I wonder if salt water is bad for him, but he’s not complaining. He’s a good listener. He’s my best friend. Fine is the only living thing besides myself who I’m responsible for. It took me a long time to get up the nerve to make that commitment, and then the first three plants I bought didn’t make it. Number four was Fine, which is short for Final Plant. I’m a final girl, he’s a final plant. We make a good team.”

— Grady Hendrix

287. “I’ve parceled my soul out, and I made them pay for it, and I got so much in return, but that’s the problem with selling something: eventually it’s all gone.”

— Grady Hendrix

288. “Mark was cleaner but he looked like exactly the type of guy who’d go to a Waffle House at three in the morning after shooting a haunted puppet.”

— Grady Hendrix

289. “You don’t separate Heather from her drugs, or Dani from Michelle, or Julia from her feminist theory, and you don’t separate Marilyn Torres from her social life. It’s her religion.”

— Grady Hendrix

290. “I need to be morbid,′ she said, and gave him her “brave soldier” smile. ‘Have a nice time.”

— Grady Hendrix

291. “A no-good man will tell you he’s going to change.”

— Grady Hendrix

292. “Pat, the store’s general manager, was jogging over in a Van Halen T-shirt and sweatpants.”

— Grady Hendrix

293. “Mark acting normal, but a puppet had tried to kill her and she wasn’t normal anymore. She laughed harder.”

— Grady Hendrix

294. “The point, she realized, was that for once in his life, Mark wasn’t going to win after all.”

— Grady Hendrix

295. “She promised herself that she was not going to cry. They could take her job, but they would not take her dignity.”

— Grady Hendrix

296. “Nothing was strong enough to stand against the passage of time.”

— Grady Hendrix

297. “Some people use literature to understand their lives,” James Harris said, continuing to stare at Korey, who squirmed beneath the intensity of his gaze. “What are you reading?”

— Grady Hendrix

298. “No one likes their children,” Maryellen said. “We love them to death, but we don’t like them.”

— Grady Hendrix

299. “I’m an atheist,” Mark said. “Pish,” Aunt Gail said, dismissing him. “You’re a Presbyterian, just like your parents.”

— Grady Hendrix

300. “I know exactly what you need,” Mark said. – “Welcome to Waffle House,” the waitress said, coming over to their back corner booth and stopping short.”

— Grady Hendrix