Sara Paretsky Quotes

I think more important than law is the hearts of people.

I was immediately smitten with an attraction to this culture, not in the sense of high culture but of the basic way people behaved towards one another.

The only time I ever get choked is when I'm at Make-A-Wish headquarters, because you're talking and working with people who share the same ideals.

I don't understand why people aren't a little more generous with each other.

Show kindness whenever possible. Show it to the people in front of you, the people coming up behind you, and the people with whom you are running neck and neck. It will vastly improve the quality of your own life, the lives of others, and the state of the world.

Contribute to the world. Help people. Help one person. Help someone cross the street today. Help someone with directions unless you have a terrible sense of direction. Help someone who is trying to help you. Just help. Make an impact. Show someone you care. Say yes instead of no. Say something nice. Smile. Make eye contact. Hug. Kiss. Get naked.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

I care about people. In the end, I think they feel it. It comes across, regardless of the character I'm portraying.

The existing principle of selfish interest and competition has been carried to its extreme point; and, in its progress, has isolated the heart of man, blunted the edge of his finest sensibilities, and annihilated all his most generous impulses and sympathies.

A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.

I'm a bleeding heart. I see lots of things to bleed about.

People must help one another. It is nature's law.

Love people, not things; use things, not people.

Charity is from person to person; and it loses half, far more than half, its moral value when the giver is not brought into personal relation with those to whom he gives.

We all have that capacity to reach out to people we don't even know and care about them ...

What are gold and jewels and precious utensils? Mere dross and dirt. The human face and the human heart, reciprocations of kindness and love, and all the nameless sympathies of our nature - these are the only objects worth being attached to.

Nice goes much further than mean.

When you read the news, and you see all this bad stuff happening, there's a tendency to lose faith in humanity. But I meet so many people who restore it and realize that, actually, 99 percent of people are great.

Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings.

Philanthropic work reminds you of everyone's common humanity, and that's really the common denominator for everyone.

We could be much more empathic as a society.

I desperately need the love of complete strangers. That's one reason I overtip. I love when skycaps, waiters, and valets are happy to see me.

I love people. When you're engaged with society and trying to make it a better society, you're an optimist.

One of the lessons I learned was that there are good people everywhere. That village, Sabray, saved my life.