Mr Lippman Quotes & Sayings

I carry in my datebook a piece of paper that my mother copied out for me, from the 1840 Census. Hardy Callaway Culver of Hancock County, Georgia, had 42 slaves, 31 "employed in agriculture." Culver was my great-great-great grandfather. I carry this piece of paper with me every day because I don't want to forget. I don't know what to do with the information, but I don't want to forget it. — Laura Lippman

The young woman at his side surveyed Tess in one quick, lethal glance. Tess could almost hear her brain clicking away on the sort of points system that some women used: Taller - 1 point for her. Hippy - 1 point against. Big breasts, long hair - 2 points for. Hair, unstyled, worn in a braid down her back - 2 points against. Older than me - 3 points against. Face, okay. Clothes, not stylish, not embarrassing. Tess wasn't sure of her final score, but apparently it was just a little too high. The woman gave her a terrifyingly fake smile, one that suggested she had little experience with real ones, and held out her hand. — Laura Lippman

As for music, my tastes are eclectic. Elvis Costello is my all-time favorite. I listen to a lot of jazz, primarily the great female vocalists, and I am very fond of the late cabaret singer Nancy Lamott. — Laura Lippman

Ten years. Ten years. Rachel missed her father every day. Not consciously, but his absence was a part of her, like a vine that wraps around a structure, sustains it even as it weakens it. — Laura Lippman

But the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library was still a place of wonders to Tess, even if the book budget had been slashed and the hours cut. Her parents had made a lot of mistakes, a fact Tess compulsively shared on first dates, but she gave them credit for doing one thing right: Starting when she was eight, they gave her a library card and dropped her off at the downtown Pratt every Saturday while they shopped. Twenty-one years later, Tess still entered through the children's entrance on the side, pausing to toss a penny in the algae-coated fish pond, then climbing the stairs to the main hall. If she could be married here, she would. — Laura Lippman

She was not a dog person. She was not a cat person, fish person, or horse person. On bad days, she was barely a people person. She ate meat, wore leather, and secretly coveted her mother's old mink. — Laura Lippman

The problem was that such simple, ordinary bliss seldom formed memories. It was too smooth and silken to adhere. It was the bad stuff, ragged and uneven, that caught, like all those plastic grocery bags stuck in the trees of Baltimore. — Laura Lippman

Still, the food is good." Whenever Tess came to Attman's, she wondered why she wasn't there at least once a week. "Best deli in Baltimore, by my lights. — Laura Lippman

I'm for anything that lets writers stretch, in or out of their series. — Laura Lippman

When destiny wants to fuck with you, it can afford to be patient. Destiny has all the time in the world. — Laura Lippman

I had ancestors who were slave-holders, which is a difficult piece of family history to say the least. In a recent New York Times article on the subject of modern attitudes toward our slave-holding past, the writer noted that we all want to be from "innocent origins." I _know_ I'm not. Then again, I suspect most of us are not. — Laura Lippman

One with a cubicle and a desk that snags your panty hose and endless memos about the right way to dispose of recyclables. And lots and lots of petty intrigue and small-minded politics, all intended to distract you from the fact that you're getting two percent raises from a company that's returning twenty percent to its stockholders. That's a real grown-up's job. — Laura Lippman

They were, as a family, constantly on the verge of being dangerously, enviably cute. — Laura Lippman

This was the second job she had lost in the last eight months, and for the same reasons. Not a people person. Not a self-starter. Showed no initiative. She wanted to argue that minimum-wage jobs such as this shouldn't require initiative. She knew how to live inside an hour, how to weather the slow passing of time. She could endure boredom better than anyone she knew. Wasn't that enough? Apparently not. — Laura Lippman

Going to college don't make you from somewhere, any more than a cat born in an over can call itself a biscuit. — Laura Lippman

I like to see writers reach bigger and bigger audiences, and stand-alones have allowed some of them to do just that. — Laura Lippman

I think Baltimore suffers from nostalgia and it keeps us from being honest in talking about what really happened here. A place doesn't have to be perfect to be beloved, and I love this city and I love it better for seeing its flaws. — Laura Lippman

He brought down Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Jay Cantor's Krazy Kat, then grabbed an omnibus volume of Dick. "And this is the book that inspired the film we saw tonight." Tess stifled a laugh, but not the surge of affection behind it. Where some might have seen an almost woeful ignorance — Laura Lippman

Being a mother was like being trapped in the first fifteen minutes of a horror film. Everything was fine, lovely. But there was this persistent sense of dread. — Laura Lippman

There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life. — Laura Lippman

Whatever you want, at any moment, someone else is getting it. Whatever you have, someone else is longing for. — Laura Lippman

Allowing one's self to be forgiven is just as hard as forgiving. Harder in some ways. Because to be forgiven, one first has to admit to being at fault. — Laura Lippman

Feeding her raw oysters at Charleston, or sharing the gingerbread with lemon chiffon sauce at Bicycle. — Laura Lippman

Bring wine," she hissed into the phone. "And Matthew's pizza. Those lima beans with feta cheese from Mezze. Sopa-pillas from Golden West. Hurry! — Laura Lippman

Stinginess seemed instinctive to him. Darwinian even. He hadn't gotten to his current size by sharing. — Laura Lippman

It's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart. — Laura Lippman

Everyone thinks everything's a waste of time when it's not the thing that leads to an answer. — Laura Lippman

I would prefer," Pat said, his voice a little stiff, as if he expected resistance, "that I be the cosigner on the loan, if you go through with this. I know I'm not a famous billionaire, but I think my credit's just as good."
No, you're wrong about that," Tess said, shaking her head.
What?"
As far as I'm concerned, it's better. I'd much rather do business with you."
They shook on it. It was a deal, after all, not a time for hugging.
Favors, Arnie Vasso had once said. Your father knows all about favors. He had meant it as an insult, a sly reference to the corners the Monaghans and Weinsteins cut here and there. Now Tess saw it for the simple truth it was: Her father understood favors. How to do them, how to accept them, how to walk away when the price was too steep. It was a lesson she wouldn't mind learning someday.
Maybe this was the place to start. — Laura Lippman

Where are you getting your material - Portnoy's Complaint?" "What does an Irish lass named Monaghan know from Portnoy and afikomens? I imagine you reading James Joyce and drinking — Laura Lippman

You can rewrite life all you want, Sandy thought,. It's still a play where everyone dies in the end. — Laura Lippman