Jonathan Kellerman Quotes

From Heartbreak Hotel:
(Thalia)" knew how tot focus on what was important and she kept things simple"
"Live long enough and everything becomes. Live long enough and your interests narrow

40 Words for Sorrow is brilliant-one of the finest crime novels I've ever read. Giles Blunt writes with uncommon grace, style and compassion and he plots like a demon. This book has it all-unforgettable characters, beautiful language, throat-constricting suspense.

Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.

Thinking, as she had a thousand times: Special needs, she's like the others, gets more money for it. Followed by the question that bothered her: What's my special need? Bobby snorted and sputtered and coughed and Ramona rushed over and slapped his back softly until he stopped. Amber started to cry and Ramona said, "One moment, darling." Grace had wondered for a while about what made Bobby weak and have trouble breathing but knew better than to ask Ramona about something that wasn't her business. Instead, she snuck

The science of psychotherapy is knowing what to say, the art is knowing when to say it. (36)

-a Jew had to have two synagogues. One that he went to, one that he rejected.
The Butcher's Theater

If you couldn't get the outcome you wanted, torture 'em with process.

sidewalk, waited until the butt cooled, and

At first, when a child meets something that scares him, the fear grows, like a wave. But when he goes into the water and swims - gets used to the water - the wave grows small. If we pull the child away when the wave is high, he never sees that, never learns how to swim and remains afraid. If he gets a chance to feel strong, in control, that's called coping. When he copes, he feels better.

That has to remain the principal reason for doing it, doesn't it? I know it's possible to write for money, and many very good writers have done so. But for me, it has to remain the principal thing that I actually want to do the writing.

Psychopaths, skillful as they are at manipulating others, have trouble with emotional regulation and generally screw up at either extreme: theatrical histrionics or cold stoicism.

Just because others have it worse doesn't mean you have to suffer in silence.

A good chunk of my life had been spent sorting out the scrambled communications, festering hostilities, and frozen affections that characterized families in turmoil. (257)

There were nights when I left the sessions physically and emotionally drained after hearing the anguish pour out like blood from a gaping wound. Don't let anyone ever tell you different – psychotherapy is one of the most taxing endeavors known to mankind; I've done all sorts of work, from picking carrots in the scorching sun to sitting on national committees in paneled board rooms, and there's nothing that compares to confronting human misery hour after hour and bearing the responsibility for easing that misery using only one's mind and mouth. At its best it's tremendously uplifting as you watch the patient open up, breathe, let go of the pain. At its worst is like surfing in a cesspool struggling for balance while being slapped with wave after putrid wave.

had nothing to do so she just sat there. The boys ignored her and continued to eat, slowly but without pause, like robots. The eggs looked stiff and rubbery and Grace already knew what Ramona's

The key to this collaboration - which we undertook after much deliberation - was to stretch creatively. New characters, new locales, new form (the novella).

What if food really was love and world peace could be a reality?

opens it." "So what're you

They say you don't grow up until you lose your parents. Frankly, I'd prefer to be immature.

He's a minister. Seems nice.

But in the words of a great philosopher, you can't always get what you want.

Because like all psychopaths he was grandiose, and convinced of his own personal magnetism, assumed worship on the part of others.

Government is like junior high. Your status depends upon whom you're able to persecute.

does Ms. Garcia hang

The stress of grad school can drive anyone temporarily mad.

Too many cases thrown out of court, too much pop-psycho crap, satanic bullshit ... if you FEEL you've been abused, you HAVE been!

Grace is false, and beauty is vain. A woman who fears God - she is praised. Give to her of the fruit of her hands, and her deeds will praise her at the gates.

Through the anger came something I recognized; the sadness that can result from too many years absorbing the poison of others. - Alex Delaware on Dr. Lehmann

Icy people often freeze themselves in order to hold in check a volcanic stew of disturbing and conflictual feelings. Emotional hibernation, if you will. Crack the ice and the stuff inside comes pouring out with all the discipline of molten lava.

If you ask me, psychopaths are more talented than the rest of us ... but they're still fucking psychopaths.

Revenge was a dish best eaten cold, but eight years between was arctic.

The symptoms of madness can often be altered with medication, but there's no therapy for evil.

soothing: re-press of an old French recording of Ida Presti, possibly the greatest guitarist who ever lived, and her husband Alexandre Lagoya, pairing on Debussy's "Clair de Lune.

I would never have been a novelist without working as a psychologist ... it was a great education in human nature.

bosh," he finally said. "Ook-la. Palm trees

O Great Swami of the East, your wisdom has pierced the miasma.

To trust someone is to take the greatest risk of all. (180)

Sleep. The ultimate resistance

We tend to read each other's books in sizeable chunks as they are written. I don't know that you could say we are ruthless with each other - in fact, I suppose we are very kind. There are ways to make suggestions which are not destructive.

Whatever fame a novelist my attain, it's always kind of an anonymous one. I can go anywhere, and no one knows who I am ...

His experience and training should have taught him that families are the cauldrons in which violence is brewed. (144)

There's profit in law enforcement?" "I was thinking spiritually." -

Here I come, victims of the world. God help all of us.

Creighton tried to smile again. The result fit him like panty hose on a mastiff.

A second mouth, grinning across his neck.

It didn't feel difficult at the time because I was so charged up about both books. Afterward, however, I was pretty tired. In a good way, like after a great workout.

atop his head a goofy skin cap simulating baldness and fringed with shoulder-length scraggle.

-Nice concept.
-What is?
-Retreating. Getting away from the grind.
-Oh, you never do. You just change gears.

He was like one of those dog breeds that needs to work.

The characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up.

That's what's so great about my job. I get paid to do what got me in trouble in grade school space out and play with my imaginary friends. In terms of Isaac, when the time's right.

except sociopaths trying to sell me term insurance, home security, and lawn care.

These people are real to me, and situations keep coming up where their emergence feels natural. It's like meeting old friends. I hope readers feel the same way.

Than the first, so you could have a fairly recent crime. But that could also

booth. The other two women face them.

It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder.

That was the thing about knowing people's secrets: It could make them not like you.

The white in her hair verged on silver-plate. The style was some cosmetologist's ode to meringue.

Most people aren't overly afflicted with curiosity. It separates the creative and the tormented from the rest of the pack. -

Time spent researching varies from book to book. Some novels require months, even years of research, others very little. I try to do most of my research before I begin but inevitably questions emerge during the writing.