Lisa Gardner Quotes

When you're on book tours, you definitely need chocolate. At all times.

Irresponsible is only irresponsible if you fail. Succeed, however; and irresponsible quickly becomes merely unorthodox.

You know what gets to me, though? You know what's truly ironic?

What?

She needed us. She was exactly the kind of person that my father and I have sworn our lives to protect. She wasn't tough. She made bad choices. She drank too much, she dated the wrong men, she believed anyone's pack of lies. God, she desperately needed someone to save her from herself. And we didn't do it. I spent so much of my childhood resenting her. Crying, complaining Mandy who was always upset about something. Now, I just wonder why we didn't take better care of her. She was in our own family. How could we fail her so completely?

Harris Reed: "Ah, you caught me."
Bobby: "And now's the part when I throw you back.

the front doors. Flashbulbs flashed. A roar rose up from the crowd at the sign of fresh activity. Then Rainie caught a new sound - the faint beating of helicopters bearing down upon them. The medevac choppers had finally arrived to carry the wounded away. And Rainie couldn't help thinking that it would be much later before the ME's office came for the bodies. Officer Luke Hayes was thirty-six years old, balding, and shorter than most women. His trim build, however, was a compact one hundred fifty pounds that turned many ladies' heads and became useful in a fight. In Rainie's opinion, however, Luke's biggest asset was his steely blue eyes. She

You can be the hunter, or you can be the hunted.

I know you have a past, but personally, I'm vested in our future.

It's kind of the yin and yang that fascinate me. That for all the evil men do, there are also people who work obnoxiously long hours and sacrifice their personal lives because it is a calling - if they don't keep our streets safe, if they aren't there to advocate for and save beaten women and children and murder victims, who will?

Mothers hold close, fathers let go. Maybe that's the way of the world.

Youth is no excuse for sloppiness.

Winners never quit, quitters never win

Who do you love?
It's a question anyone should be able to answer. A question that defines a life, creates a future, guides most minutes of one's days. Simple, elegant encompassing.
Who do you love?

Oh, for the love of God. There is no agent more agent than you. I swear you have pin-striped ties encrypted into your DNA. When you die, the coffin is going to read Property of the FBI.

Start fresh." "And Maryanne?" "She's devastated about what James put us through. I think she'd like a fresh start, too, and more time with Nathan. On the other hand ... you know, she really loves James. Even after everything, I don't think she can bring herself to leave him." James was in a coma. Between the blood loss and damage to his internal organs, his system had shut down. Doctors didn't think he'd ever regain consciousness. Mostly, they were surprised the man was still alive. "Maybe someday," Bobby said. Catherine nodded. "Maryanne likes Arizona. She mentioned they'd always talked about buying a home out there. So maybe, afterwards ... " His turn to nod. Now they both watched Nathan. The boy's cheeks were flushed, his breath coming in frosty pants. Trickster nipped at his

All I've really ever done is write since I was 17, so I don't know anything about anything. For me to do a novel, I have to talk to people who know things. And what keeps me in suspense is that I am a crime aficionado.

Once, I was my mother's daughter. Now I am my daughter's mother.

Pain has a flavor. The question is ... what does it taste like to you?

Asked Thomas; it's just him and me and has been for a very long time. We tell each other we are

I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present.

I still read romance, and I read suspense. I read them both. And part of it is, I like stories with strong characters, and I like stories where there's closure at the end. And I like stories where there's hope. That's a kind of empowerment. I think romance novels are very empowering, and I think suspense novels are, too.

That brought D.D. up short.

It wasn't that strangers couldn't hurt you. It was simply that the people you loved could do it so much better.

I don't know much about international policing and I would love to learn more. Especially in this day and age when the Internet is rapidly reducing borders and crime can happen on a larger scale than ever before. These things intrigue me.

The only time you're calm, you're centered, you're at peace, is when someone's trying to kill you. And that's just plain twisted.

So let's catch this son of a bitch, so I can return to my classes, and finish up my degree. Then I'll join law enforcement, neglect my own family, and the cycle will be complete.

I'm very intrigued by e-books, the topic du jour in the industry today. As a number one bestselling Kindle author, I love the way e-books make an author's backlist accessible to new readers. Of course, price point remains a source of concern. Personally, I don't have any of the answers, but I'm intrigued by the questions.

Quincy, boyfriends apologize, shrinks analyze. Which are you?

Then we did the best we could, all we could. He was the enemy, Kimberly. He took their lives. And God help both of us, but sometimes the enemy is simply that good.

It's so much easier to fall in love, and so much more complicated to fall out of it.

Let me be the first to say, there isn't a hell big enough for some of the assholes we have walking here on this earth.

No. I joined the FBI so I could be heavily armed, and also help others.

There is a breed of men out there, you know, who are attracted to strong women. They just don't know what to do once they win us over.

Dual-income families have turned out a batch of superpredators who have no sympathy or remorse. Blast 'em up on Nintendo; blast 'em up on the streets.

Men may be violent, Officer Dodge, but let's face it-women are cruel ...

His job already had him lying and manipulating me. My past had me lying and manipulating him. Both of us thought we were right.

I'd clawed my way back to the land of the living. Because of Vero. She needed me.

Most people don't need the help of strangers to screw up their lives; most of them are quite capable of doing it themselves!

Stop psychoanalyzing me! Be less therapist, more man --"

"Man? Last time I tried being a man, you looked at me as if I was going to hit you. You don't need a man, Rainie. You either need a blow-up doll or a damn saint!

I have a huge author crush on Stephen King. Have never met him. Would probably embarrass myself. But it would be worth it.

It's human nature, Rainie. We're all looking for something to believe in, and someone to blame.

Special Agent Quincy had earned his stripes as one of the Bureau's finest profilers.

I'm unique for a suspense author in that I don't have a specialty background. A lot of suspense writers used to be lawyers or crime beat reporters. I didn't even know a cop when I started out. I finally figured out that I could visit prisons - I just had to be willing to make the phone calls.

My secret vice is Sudoku puzzles. Can't stop playing them. My parents are accountants. I blame them entirely.

Women cry. Men laugh. Whiners moan. Men laugh. Wimps complain. Men laugh.

Dad, I don't know why I'm still alive...

Because God took pity on me, Kimberly. Because without you, I think I would've gone insane.

I still like the relationship part of any story. You don't want your character to figure everything out and then at the end of the day, go home and eat soup from a can by herself.

My mother would like me to start all interviews by stating that she and my father are perfectly normal. They are proud of me, and as perplexed as anyone by my novels.

Expect nothing and life will be velvet.

No doubt about it: Mac would make an excellent mother.

Because sometimes pain is knowing, and sometimes pain is sharing that knowledge with someone who loves you but can't do anything to help.

Post-apocalyptic novels tell you that in the future there is some great war. I would tell you that most cops say that it's going on right now.

It was not the past that broke you. - It was the empty future, the endless string of days filled with none of the people who mattered most.

The truth did not always set you free. Sometimes it bound you to dark, bloody deeds and cost you the people you loved.

Look at him. But I can't. Too many things are exploding in my head, and the memories are both simpler and more horrible

God was in the details.

They died, leaving behind the kind of void that is never filled, a relentless ache that follows an abandoned child throughout her entire life. And

You swim and you keep swimming without a thought in your head because that's what you have to do. And you do the push-ups and you jog and you do all the things beyond exhaustion because you have to. Then one day you'll discover you're in the zone and you don't feel your legs anymore, you don't feel your arms anymore. You exist just as motion. That's the zone. Then you can do anything.

Her hand now rested on the top of her left thigh. Where she had the knife strapped, he guessed, and immediately felt his gut tighten with a shot of good, old-fashioned male lust. He did not know why an armed woman should be so arousing, but man oh man, this one was.

it, Shep does his ordering for the department and for himself all from the same manufacturer.

And a man and woman should fight. Frankly, they should have a good head-to-head battle about every six months, then make love until they break the box springs.

The past has a will of its own. It wants to be heard.

It's not the flying that's the hard part; it's the landing.

When it comes to locations, I'm one of those crazy authors who has to see it, touch it, taste it, before I trust myself to recreate it for my readers. Having said that, visiting a locked-down pediatric psych ward was the most intimidating research I've ever done - and I've visited maximum security prisons, shooting galleries, bone collections, etc.

They [Cops] were living in the media age, and in the media age, cops didn't get to fire their weapons. Cops were honored if they got themselves killed in the line of duty, but they were never suppose to draw their guns, not even in self-defense.

Life may not be perfect, at least it offered moments that were perfect enough.

Mr. Bosu began to get truly resentful. If killing was so damn easy, his employer should do it himself. Honest to God, a little murder and mayhem wasn't everything it was cracked up to be.

Everyone should say what they wanted. It saved time.

You know what the difference between a cardiac surgeon and God is? God doesn't think he's a cardiac surgeon.

Whomever speaks first gives up some power.

IN A DETECTIVE'S WORLD there was one true blight on society, and it wasn't the master criminal; after all, superpredators were few and far between. It was the media. Sunday

Mental illness is a disease and organic mental illness of young kids is becoming more and more of a disease ... we do need to talk about it.

We're going to find this girl, we're going to save the day, and then we're going to walk out of this park so we can nail the bastard. Deal?

You are a woman after my own heart.

Parents think the worst thing that can happen to their five-year-old is cancer. They're wrong; the worst thing that can happen to their five-year-old is mental illness.

My mother would watch him and sigh. He's a young soul, she would say, with a tender heart. She worried for him. But never for me. I was the happy one. At least, that's how the story goes.

Sugar and fat a socially acceptable drugs.

I loved ghost stories, creaky staircases, stormy nights. If it guaranteed nightmares I read it by flashlight, after midnight.

What I learned is that it's arrogant to be certain of anything. The world is a complex place and only idiots or assholes think they know it all.

I think one of the appeals of suspense is to safely explore our innermost fears.