Laurell K. Hamilton Quotations

I always treated writing as a profession, never as a hobby. If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.

What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in New Orleans, goes home with you.

I feel that if you are blessed, or lucky enough, to be doing well, you should help others.

Like most creative people I don't fit well into boxes.

I love animals, always have, and it seemed natural to help the ASPCA. Animals have no voice of their own, so we have to be that voice

You'd think a sociopath assassin wouldn't have a fan following but he does

I've lost track of the number of people who want to be writers but never actually write anything. Talking about writing, dreaming about writing, can be very fun, but it won't get a book written. You've got to write

Everyone spends their lives trying to balance their world between good and evil.

You either mellow at 30, or your head explodes - take your choice.

My writing style is very sensual, as in sensory detail

I like conventions. I like meeting and greeting. I'm perched on that edge where I'm getting more attention than I quite know what to do with, though.

It was just you had to be strong, and if you weren't strong you're a victim and you're not going to make it. That was the reality when I was growing up.

Perfection is an unattainable goal. It isn't going to be perfect. Just get words down on paper, and when you stumble to what you think is the end of the book, you will have hundreds of pages of words that came out of your head. It may not be perfect, but it looks like a book.

One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane.

I want a kiss to be so believable it gives the reader shivers.

Two things I do well in books are sex and violence, but I don't want gratuitous sex or violence. The sex and violence are only as graphic as need be. And never included unless it furthers the plot or character development

By 17, I was submitting to publications and collecting my first rejection slips.

If you're open to it, New Orleans will teach you about yourself, but if you want to hide from who you really are, the city will help you do that, too.

Most of the monsters... are based on some sort of mythology. Every culture and even some geographical areas have monsters and mythology that is their own.

Readers respond to every genre intensely, if it's a genre that appeals to them. Again, who can say why anyone enjoys horror and dark fantasy? If I can't answer the question for myself, I wouldn't dream of trying to answer it for others

You give the reader a sense of a full meal.

I think that my vampires in general were influenced by my being allowed to watch the Hammer vampire films. Vampire Circus, also shown as Circus of Fear, was one of those movies

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people

Here's the secret to finishing that first book. Don't rewrite as you go.

I went to Marion College for writing and I was kicked out of the writing school. I was asked to leave the writing program because I was corrupting the other students.

You can't save everybody. In fact, there are days when I think you can't save anyone. Each person has to save himself first, then you can move in and help. I have found this philosophy does not work during a gun battle, or a knife fight either. Outside of that it works just fine.

Nothing wrong with making money or doing what you need to do to sell, but I think it shows when you're writing something to pay the bills and when you're writing something because it's really your version of the world.

I guess, what I'm saying is that when I've been this surprised by my own characters and world, all bets are off.

Remember your personal demons should be afraid of you, because you are their home, their food, and as you heal, their executioner.

My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them.

The best lies are always at least partially true.

There comes a point when you either embrace who and what you are, or condemn yourself to be miserable all your days. Other people will try to make you miserable; don't help them by doing the job yourself.

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

Giving up something that no longer serves a purpose, or protects you, or helps you, isn’t giving up at all, it’s growing up.

There is some comfort in killing that which has hurt you, but it is cold comfort. It'll destroy things inside of you that the original pain wouldn't have harmed. Sometimes it's not a question of whether a piece of your soul is going to go missing, only which piece it's going to be.

Fear, the strength of earth's religions, gripping every living soul, Was a monstrous human error for the making of men whole.

You take insult where none is intended, but if you will find insult where none is meant, then perhaps I should try harder to insult on purpose.

Being a successful couple was learning what you were willing to compromise on, and what you weren't; learning when to stand your ground, and when to give it up; what was truly important enough to fight over, and what was just you being pissy. You learned each other's hot buttons, the places that hurt, or angered, when you pressed them. Love makes you learn where all the pitfalls are, and how to avoid them, or how to set them off.

It was like noticing the sun. You couldn't help but see it, to turn to face the heat of it, to bask in the glory of it. But often when the sun is high in the sky, the moon is up there, too. A dim memory of what she will be in the night, but there, nonetheless, dim and misty, hard and white. At night, there is only the moon, the sun is nowhere to be seen. There are no distractions when the moon rules the sky.

Love is too precious to be ashamed of.

It's not about winning, Haven. I'm not a prize to be won. I'm not the princess that needs rescuing from the dragon. I'm the prince and I kill my own monsters. You need to be ok with that. -Anita Blake

I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you have ever smiled, of every surprise I have seen flash through your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has left its mark upon your face,I will treasure you all the more, because I was there to see it all. I will share your life with you, Meredith, and I will love you until the last breath leaves your body or mine.

The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.

I loved him, but love isn't enough. All the fairy tales, the romance novels, the soap operas; they're all lies. Love does not conquer all.

There are a thousand ways to hurt someone you love that have nothing to do with physical violence.

Only love of a good woman will make a man question every choice, every action. Only love makes a warrior hesitate for fear that his lady will find him cruel. Only love makes a man both the best he will ever be, and the weakest. Sometimes all in the same moment. -Wicked

I used to think I knew what was right and what was wrong, and who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are. Then the world got very gray, and I didn't know anything for a long time

Feelings are never stupid, they just make us feel stupid sometimes.

Sometimes the monsters are real, Anita. Sometimes they’re real and the only way to defeat them is to be the bigger monster.' - Chang Bibi to Anita

I’d learned a long time ago that you can’t prove a negative. You can prove that you did something, but it’s the devil to prove you didn’t do something.

Some issues stay fresh every time you open them up. It's like evil magical Tupperware -- it stays fresh forever.

When in doubt, ignore and be horribly unimpressed

You can not die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss him as much as you once did, and giving up your grief is another kind of death.

Men don't settle down because of the right woman. They settle down because they are finally ready for it. Whatever woman they're dating when they get ready is the one they settle down with, not necessarily the best one or the prettiest, just the one who happened to be on hand when the time got to be right. Unromantic, but still true.

A girl could never have too much jewelry or too much weaponry.

I enjoy my anger, it’s the only hobby I have.

I try to be a good cop. I try to be a good little soldier and follow orders up to a point. But in the end I’m not really a cop, or a soldier. I am a legally sanctioned murderer. I am the Executioner.

People are supposed to fear the unknown, but ignorance is bliss when knowledge is so damn frightening.

No name-calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it is just noise.

I'd never met coffee that wasn't wonderful. It was just a matter of how wonderful it was.

I knew from the moment I heard you, the moment I saw the gun and realized that this lovely, petit woman was the executioner, that you would never die waiting for me to save you - that you would save yourself.

Zebrowski says that if you killed someone else just hide the body, he's not starting over on the paperwork.

I sipped my own coffee, heavy on the sugar and cream, trying to make up for the late work the night before. Caffeine and sugar, the two basic food groups.

That disapproving look was back in her eyes. Her teacher face. The one that could make you squirm from ten paces, even if you were innocent. And I hadn't been innocent for years.

Some days you go bear hunting and you get eaten. Some days you come home with a nice rug to roll around on, and bear steaks. What they don't tell you as a kid is that sometimes you get the rug and steaks, but you also get some nice scars to go with them. As a child you don't understand that you can win, but that's it's not always worth the price. Once you understand and accept that possibility you become a real grown up, and the world becomes a much more serious place. Not less fun, but once you realize what can go wrong, it's a lot scarier to go hunting "bears".

Hope will lie to you, but lust is what it is; it never lies.

Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six.

Before I knew you, I thought brave was not being afraid. You've taught me that bravery is being terrified and doing it anyway.

Rafael, the Rat King, stared at the carnage with black-button eyes. "She is dead." "Ding dong, the witch is dead,

I sat on the bed. Neither of us said anything. I wasn't slick and sophisticated enough for this. What do you say to boyfriend A when he finds you naked in the bed of boyfriend B? Especially if boyfriend A turned into a monster the night before and ate someone. I bet Miss Manners didn't cover this at all.

Can the sarcasm,' he said. 'Please, I always use fresh sarcasm, never canned.

A little boy who's discovered the monster under the bed is actually real, and it's screwing Mommy.

I hate women who complain about being fat when they're like a size 5. Anything under size 5 isn't a woman. It's a boy with breasts.

Money doesn't spend in hell.... The devil deals in a different coin.

If you love someone, then your freedom is curtailed. If you love someone, you give up much of your privacy. If you love someone, then you are no longer merely one person but half of a couple. To think or behave any other way is to risk losing that love.

She stared up at me, and there was something in her eyes, something that said we finally had an understanding. She was afraid of me, and sometimes that’s the best you can do with people. I’d tried kindness. I’d tried friendship. I’d tried respect. But when all else fails, fear will do the job.

Not dating is a choice, not a failure.

It was an hour before dawn. When all the Whos down in Whoville were asnooze in their beds without care. Sorry, wrong book. If I get to stay awake until dawn, I get just a tad slaphappy.

Besides I'm a sucker for a pair of pretty eyes.

I don't have a master. I'm not sure if I have an equal.

We aren't the good guys, Anita. We're the necessary guys. -Edward

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then Edward's in trouble 'cause no one is home.

To gain your heart's desire you have to lose some part of your old life, your old self. To do that you have to have courage; without it, you can't make the leap. And if you don't make the leap you have only three choices: You can hate yourself for not taking the chance, you can hate the person from whom you've sacrificed your happiness, or you can hate the one who offered you happiness, and blame them for your lack of courage, convince yourself it wasn't real.

Children make that big a difference to you? He asked. I nodded. Yeah, they do. I never figured you as the maternal type. I'm not, but kids are people, Edward, little people trapped by the choices the adults around them make.

And your excuse?' I asked. 'I'm a sociopath; I don't have to be nice,' Nicky said. I gave him a look. 'You're mad at him.I can feel it; which means I really don't have to be nice to him.' 'I thought you were friends.' 'What part of sociopath didn't you understand?' he asked.

Sometimes love isn't about being smart. Sometimes it's about being stupid together.

We are not made up only of our light and happiness but also of darkness and sorrow. To deny the darkness of yourself is to deny half of who you are, and when you love, truly love, you need to love the whole person not just the part that smiles and waves, but the part that thinks murderous thoughts and knows that pain is both pleasure and temptation, but still thinks puppies are really cute.

...you don't need ghosts to be haunted. Memory does that just fine without any supernatural help at all.

Most hatred is based on fear, one way or another.

Love is not about owning someone, but about loving them.

Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

It's good not to be the only girl in the fight for once.

It means black kitten," I said with my pulse almost even again. Ares studied me. "And you're ok with them calling you their black kitten?" "They're wererats, Ares," I said. He frowned at me. "They're not calling me their little black rat. Think it through.

A certain type of man, when he loves for the first time, his love is not really love, it is possession. Possessions don't have rights or feelings; they are something to owned and controlled. He had spent more than a year trying to do just that, and failing.

The only good enemy is a dead enemy.

Knock your bad self out.

I laid my hand on top of theirs, and all I could think was, Is this how revolutions begin? Not with a proclamation or a riot, but with a few people in a room somewhere with their hands clasped and a purpose.

Your heart is not a wound to be poked at to see if the scab is ready to come off. You can be healed of that very old pain, if you’ll just let it happen. (Marianne)

You lie like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, Edward." He smiled. "I don't lie to you." "Really," I said. The smile became a grin. "Okay, not most of the time, anymore." His face sobered. "I'm not lying now.