Top 200 Karin Slaughter Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Forever was never as long as you thought it was.”

— Karin Slaughter

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

— Karin Slaughter

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

— Karin Slaughter

104. “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

105. “She had told herself when she put on her sweatpants this morning that she was going to the gym, and she had gone near the gym, but only because there was a Starbucks in the parking lot.”

— Karin Slaughter

106. “I’m sold as a literary writer in Holland; I’m sold as crime fiction in England. I think of it as just literature.”

— Karin Slaughter

107. “I’m not choosing anybody but myself.′ Jane was sick of men thinking they could give her ultimatums.”

— Karin Slaughter

108. “He sat on the bed beside Carter. He tried one-handed to press Carter’s finger to the home button on the phone. Beau said, “Won’t work when they’re dead. You need a capacitance signal in your skin to activate the ring. Gotta have a heartbeat to make that happen.”

— Karin Slaughter

109. “You are my child. I am your mother.” Helen sounded resolute. “I won’t apologize for doing my job.”

— Karin Slaughter

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

— Karin Slaughter

111. “Marriages were perplexing animals, always changing, sometimes gentle, sometimes vicious.”

— Karin Slaughter

112. “Jeffrey never understood how people could think a dead person was just sleeping. Death changed the air, charged it with something thick and unsettling.”

— Karin Slaughter

113. “Used to be, only bikers and outlaws had tattoos. They were so commonplace now that they weren’t even a statement. Unless the statement was, “Look, I’m like everybody else.” Her.”

— Karin Slaughter

114. “It might do you some good to remember that at the end of the day, no matter how smart that brain of yours is up there, it’s your heart that needs looking after.”

— Karin Slaughter

115. “He had always told her that winners only competed with themselves.”

— Karin Slaughter

116. “Michael swallowed, feeling like he was choking on his grief. “Fifteen,” he said. She’d just had a birthday last week. He’d bought her a stuffed giraffe. “She’s fifteen.”

— Karin Slaughter

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

— Karin Slaughter

118. “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

119. “To all the librarians in the world on behalf of all the kids y’all helped grow up to be writers.”

— Karin Slaughter

120. “All the sneakiness her sister had exhibited as a child had been honed to adult perfection, so that Claire could be standing right in front of an oncoming train and still insist that everything was going to be fine.”

— Karin Slaughter

121. “That is complicated question with an equally complicated answer.”

— Karin Slaughter

122. “I’m not somebody who believes in evil.”

— Karin Slaughter

123. “Anything’s legal if you can get away with it.” Maggie slammed the locker closed. “Welcome to the Atlanta Police Department.”

— Karin Slaughter

124. “That’s the problem with life, Sam. If you’re not rising, you’re falling.”

— Karin Slaughter

125. “I’ve always been drawn to historical fiction.”

— Karin Slaughter

126. “Will had found out the hard way that it’s nearly impossible to go to sleep with a flatulent Chihuahua sharing your pillow.”

— Karin Slaughter

127. “Will had underestimated the man’s doucheness. Faith could smell it coming off him like damp in a basement.”

— Karin Slaughter

128. “That doesn’t sound invisible to me.” “I’m saying it wrong, then.” Lydia searched for a better way to explain. “She was always holding herself back. She was cocaptain, not captain. She could’ve dated the quarterback, but she dated his brother instead. She could’ve been top in her class, but she’d purposefully turn in a paper late or miss an assignment so she’d fall closer to the middle. She would know about Mauna Kea, but she would say Everest because winning would bring too much attention.”

— Karin Slaughter

129. “Clair watched the young man pour Paul’s Scotch with a previously unseen professionalism. Her wedding ring, her gentle brush-offs, and her outright rejection had been minor obstacles compared to the big no of another man kissing her cheek.”

— Karin Slaughter

130. “I’ve got to figure out before I die whether I want to be happy or I want to be right.”

— Karin Slaughter

131. “As Kate had told her Oma the night before, there was no society more viciously controlled by rumor than your local police force.”

— Karin Slaughter

132. “I have a few unusual fans, as you can imagine, so I try to protect the privacy of my home life.”

— Karin Slaughter

133. “She would never feel another man’s touch without wondering whether or not she could really trust him.”

— Karin Slaughter

134. “Sometimes, all you could do was pray for the strength to carry on.”

— Karin Slaughter

135. “Men can always reinvent themselves,” Laura said. “For women, once you’re a mother, you’re always a mother.”

— Karin Slaughter

136. “Charlie had always told Lenore things that she would never admit to anyone else. Lenore had known Rusty for over fifty years. She was a black hole into which all of the Quinn family secrets disappeared.”

— Karin Slaughter

137. “You are an enigma wrapped in a sticky bun.”

— Karin Slaughter

138. “I told him before all of this happened was that holding on to that kind of grudge was like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

— Karin Slaughter

139. “Dyadic completion,” Paul would’ve told Claire. “The human brain tends to assume that, if there’s a victim, there has to be a villain.”

— Karin Slaughter

140. “Will always assumed that when people insisted they weren’t lying about a particular thing, that meant they were lying about something else.”

— Karin Slaughter

141. “Why did it have to be her?”

— Karin Slaughter

142. “Rippy’s. Get in the car. Drive to the motel. Wait for me.”

— Karin Slaughter

143. “Violence never worked in the service of women.”

— Karin Slaughter

144. “He had given weight to her life, tied her down to the world when her natural inclination had always been to float above everything, as if it were happening to someone else.”

— Karin Slaughter

145. “Redneck alarm,” Charlie told her. You couldn’t step foot in the Holler without a hundred dogs howling your arrival. The deeper in you went, the more young white men you’d see standing on their front porches, one hand holding their cell phone and the other under their shirt rubbing their belly.”

— Karin Slaughter

146. “The world stops for you when you’re pretty. That’s why women spend billions on crap for their faces. Their whole life, they’re the center of attention. People want to be around them just because they’re attractive.”

— Karin Slaughter

147. “As a Southerner, I love obstacles for my characters.”

— Karin Slaughter

148. “All of your friends told the sheriff that you danced because you loved dancing, not because you were trying to attract men.”

— Karin Slaughter

149. “I’ve always preferred crazy to stupid. Stupid can break your heart.”

— Karin Slaughter

150. “Dad. I knew that was it. No more holding my hand. No more sitting in my lap. No more throwing your arms around my waist when I walked through the front door or standing on my shoes while we danced around the kitchen. I would be the bank now. The ride to your friend’s house. The critic of your biology homework. The signature on the check mailed away with your college application.”

— Karin Slaughter