34 Quotes by Alafair Burke

Playing well with others isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The best crime novels are all based on people keeping secrets. All lying - you may think a lie is harmless, but you put them all together and there's a calamity.

According to FBI statistics for 2008, only 22 percent of murder victims were killed by strangers. More than 30 percent were slain by family members, boyfriends, and girlfriends. Nearly half of all murders were committed by friends, neighbors, and casual acquaintances.

In our system, we leave questions of fact to a jury. But to render a verdict, a jury must know the law. For this, we rely upon jury instructions. Instructions are supposed to translate the law into lay terms that the jury can apply to the facts as they determine them.

Nothing worse than reading a love scene written by your father.

Letterman, despite whatever idiotic (or worse?) things he may have done with women on his staff, was wise enough to realize that silence isn't permanent and peace of mind can't be bought.

Moving to New York made all the difference in my creating this new series with Ellie Hatcher. I love Portland, and it's always going to be one of my favorite cities, but it was getting to the point where, after I'd moved to New York, I couldn't write as specifically about Portland any more.

Now that I think about it, maybe my own literary exploration of the dark secrets held by families could be traced back to V.C. Andrews.

I find myself more and more behind these days. You have to be really diligent. I don't have kids, which helps. I'm always working on something, whether a book, or a law review article that no one will ever read, or teaching. It pretty much means I work a lot, but it's all stuff I love.