Top 200 Karin Slaughter Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “You can’t light a match, then act surprised when your house burns down.”

— Karin Slaughter

52. “Anybody could be smart. It took a special somebody to be clever.”

— Karin Slaughter

53. “I must confess, sweetheart, that I have been neglecting my wall of clues. My “useless gallimaufry,” your mother called it on the one and only occasion she deigned to look at my work. I sagely agreed with her observation but of course I went running to the dictionary as soon as she was gone. Gallimaufry: a hodgepodge; a confused jumble of various people or things; any absurd medley.”

— Karin Slaughter

54. “Everyone had a reason for everything they did, even if that reason was sometimes stupidity.”

— Karin Slaughter

55. “I still want it to die. Like immediately. With fire.”

— Karin Slaughter

56. “Love doesn’t keep you in a constant state of turmoil. It gives you peace.”

— Karin Slaughter

57. “Southern Cheap is, I’m gonna eat stale cookies while I serve you these fresh, warm buttered biscuits. Yankee Cheap is, I’ve got ten million dollars in the bank but I’m gonna cut off the thermostat during a blizzard and here’s my great-great-grandpa’s mothballed coat from the War of 1812 if you don’t have the character and fortitude to generate your own body heat.”

— Karin Slaughter

58. “Dogs are stupid,” Rusty said. “This is a known fact. But a cat – you have to earn a cat’s respect every single day of your life. You lose it and – ” He snapped his fingers. “That’s what your mama was to me. She was my cat. She kept my compass pointing true north.”

— Karin Slaughter

59. “Every place always has somebody who doesn’t fit in. That’s what makes them fit in.”

— Karin Slaughter

60. “There were good guys and bad guys, and to protect one, you did what you had to do to the other.”

— Karin Slaughter

61. “You can take my heart, but I can’t let you take my dog.”

— Karin Slaughter

62. “Because I said so.” She paused again. “Sweetheart, I know you’re an adult, but adults are like vampires. The older ones are much more powerful.”

— Karin Slaughter

63. “Existe gentileza em muitos lugares inesperados.”

— Karin Slaughter

64. “A possum stared at me through the door all night.” “That’s Bill.” Charlie turned on the giant television. “He’s my lover.”

— Karin Slaughter

65. “No matter what happened to you, no matter what horrors you endured when you were taken away, you will always be my pretty little girl.”

— Karin Slaughter

66. “You don’t understand how the world works. That there are consequences you can’t predict. That bad choices, bad deeds, can corrupt you.”

— Karin Slaughter

67. “Some people are born with a hole inside them. They spend their lives trying to fill it. Sometimes it’s pills, sometimes it’s Jesus.”

— Karin Slaughter

68. “He always took lateness as being rude. It said to the other person that their time was more valuable than yours.”

— Karin Slaughter

69. “Proactive interference,” Paul would have explained. “It’s when previously acquired information inhibits our ability to process new information.”

— Karin Slaughter

70. “Please know I worked very hard to make sure everyone – no matter race, religion, creed, gender, or national origin – was equally maligned.”

— Karin Slaughter

71. “He was playing chess and she was sucking at checkers.”

— Karin Slaughter

72. “Marriage. That’s what he called it, though men like Paul do not marry women. They own them. They control them. They are voracious gluttons who devour every part of a woman, then clean their teeth with the bones.”

— Karin Slaughter

73. “This sheriff goes into a saloon and says, “I’m lookin’ for a cowboy wearing a brown paper vest and brown paper pants.’ He waited a beat, making sure Sara was listening. ‘The bartender says, “What’s he wanted for?” And the sheriff says, “Rustling.”

— Karin Slaughter

74. “Inside, he had forgotten what it was like to hear a woman’s voice, listen to the sort of complaints that only women could have. Bad haircuts. Rude store clerks. Chipped nails. Men wanted to talk about things: cars, guns, snatch. They didn’t discuss their feelings unless it was anger, and even that didn’t last for long because generally they started doing something about it.”

— Karin Slaughter

75. “No amount of flowers or pretty compliments could ever measure up to a man who did housework.”

— Karin Slaughter

76. “He shrugged. “Are you going to answer me?” “You told me to shut up.”

— Karin Slaughter

77. “Like my father, I have devoted my life to treating animals, but that was the first time I had ever made the connection between the horrible things people do to animals and the even more horrific things they do to other human beings. Here was how a chain ripped flesh. Here was the damage wrought by kicking feet and punching fists.”

— Karin Slaughter

78. “Why is it that we always neglect the things that matter most? This is a universal question, because through the days and weeks and months and years after your disappearance, I understood that I did not cherish you enough. I never told you that I loved you enough. I never held you enough. I never listened to you enough. You.”

— Karin Slaughter

79. “Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest.”

— Karin Slaughter

80. “Your mother was not surprised to hear me say this. This was a time when the pendulum of hope still swung back and forth between us, so that some days she took to her bed with sorrow and some days she came home from the store with a shirt or a sweater or a pair of jeans that she would give you when you returned home to us.”

— Karin Slaughter

81. “A person who has been up close when a gun is fired into another human being never mistakes the sound of a gunshot for something else.”

— Karin Slaughter

82. “Every time Kate got an inkling that she might live, she remembered what her life was like and wondered if it was worth the effort.”

— Karin Slaughter

83. “Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.”

— Karin Slaughter

84. “You couldn’t turn on the TV without hearing about the missing teenage girl. Sixteen years old. White. Middle class. Very pretty. No one ever seemed quite as outraged when an ugly woman went missing.”

— Karin Slaughter

85. “It is a father’s job to love his daughter in the way that she needs to be loved.”

— Karin Slaughter

86. “It’s very important for your life to have meaning. Even on the days it makes you unhappy, you still need a purpose.”

— Karin Slaughter

87. “Maybe that’s why Claire had perfected the art of invisibility. It was a form of self-preservation. You couldn’t resent what you could not see. She was so quiet, but she noticed everything. Her eyes tracked the world like it was a book written in a language that she could not understand. There was nothing timorous about her, but you got the feeling that she always had one foot out the door. If the situation got too hard, or too intense, she would simply disappear.”

— Karin Slaughter

88. “Meg Gardiner is one of my favorite authors. She always delivers a terrific read. Phantom Instinct should go to the top of your ‘to-be-read’ pile.”

— Karin Slaughter

89. “This women’s lib stuff works for rich girls, but all you’ve got going for you is your face and your figure. You need to take advantage of both before you lose them.”

— Karin Slaughter

90. “If there was one thing she excelled at, it was being her own inner mean girl.”

— Karin Slaughter

91. “Trust me, sweetheart, there is a reason centuries of fathers have fought brutal wars to protect the concept of Immaculate Conception.”

— Karin Slaughter

92. “Keeping libraries open, giving access to all children to all books is vital to our nation’s sovereignty.”

— Karin Slaughter

93. “Long Gone is the type of book that should come with a warning. It’s a compulsively readable, highly addictive story. The ending will leave you breathless.”

— Karin Slaughter

94. “Kantor’s Andersonville,” she said, adding, “It’s a first edition.”

— Karin Slaughter

95. “He wore a watch on his wrist, but only as a cheat to help him differentiate between left and right.”

— Karin Slaughter

96. “He felt about as useless as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.”

— Karin Slaughter

97. “Rick shuffled through the cards again. “Where is the tallest mountain on earth?” Lydia put her hand over her eyes so she could concentrate. “You said tallest, not highest elevation, so it can’t be Everest.” She made some thinking noises that caused the dogs to stir. The cat started making biscuits on her stomach. She could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen. Finally, Rick said, “Think ukulele.” She peeked through her fingers. “Hawaii?” “Mauna Kea.”

— Karin Slaughter

98. “Did you know that Bayer used to own the trademark for heroin?” She shook her head at the subterfuge. “The aspirin company?” “They lost the trademark after World War I. It’s in the Treaty of Versailles.” “You learn something new every day.” “Sears used to sell preloaded syringes of heroin in their catalogue. A buck fifty for two.”

— Karin Slaughter

99. “I wil tell you something very important: there is value in forgiveness.”

— Karin Slaughter

100. “The thing about having a bad reputation is that folks will believe just about anything people say about you.”

— Karin Slaughter