Patricia Cornwell Quotes

Aggression is about competing. Competing for the male, for the female, competing for the person most fit for breeding. Competing for resources such as food and shelter. Competing for power, because without hierarchy there can't be social order. In other words, aggression occurs when it's profitable.

No one good or evil ceases to exist; life is energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed; it is recycled. Therefore, it is possible that the pure of heart and the purely evil have been here before and will be here again.

I stop working at about 3 p.m. on Fridays.

point is, he wants to hurt you, doc, and he's already trying hard. one way or another he's going to screw you, if he can."
"he can wait in line with all the other people who want to.

You can never be real sure who's all right and who ain't... It's real hard to know these days, that's for damn sure.

I am an Armani and a Dolce & Gabbana kind of a person.

Charisma is something you have or you don't have. You can't manufacture it. You can't. She didn't try. It just was. - Matt Pettersen

Perhaps my greatest shame was that I could not show what I should, and I worried no one would ever know how much I cared. Crows

nothing like shooting a man while he's down

Phisoderm, not an inch spared, not the inside of my ears and nose,

If you chomp down too hard on my work, you're going to break your teeth.

Your aura has nothing to do with colors or foods you like." She smiled. "Yellow can mean spiritual. And brown I associate with good sense, practical. Someone grounded in reality. I see your aura as being very spiritual but also very practical. Now mind you, that is my interpretation. For each person, colors mean a different thing.

Be careful who you choose for an enemy because that is who you become most like, Anna tosses Nietzsche's quote up into the air. She serves up words she has heard me say in the past.

WALTER SICKERT was connected with Jack the Ripper long before I appeared on the scene. I'm not the first one to think of him. But I'm the first to investigate him the same way we would a suspect today.

he who survives writes the rules.

My niece has a habit of telling you she's leaving after she's already gone.

I was consumed, too, not by the dying but by the dead.

And suddenly the world was filled with wooden faces and flat voices - and, you were alone.

I'm very, very sensitive to pain and to people who suffer.

To almost die is to know that one day you will, and to never again feel the same about anything.

I disagreed. Some people feel things more deeply than others, and some people feel things the rest of us don't. This is what causes isolation, the sense of being apart, different

But when I was a little kid, I was always writing stories and illustrating little books that I would create.

I intended to beat down any lingering resistance with bluntness.

He has Raynaud's syndrome

Wit is the genius to perceive and the metaphor to express.' Or

Meaning they can maintain a core temperature independently of the environmental temperature," I reply. "That's rather remarkable, and not what I'd expect." "Like the dinosaurs, they can survive in waters as warm as the tropics or cold enough to kill a human in minutes." "Certainly defies what I understand about reptiles." I

Our government spies and lies. Those trusted to uphold and enforce the law use it to their advantage instead.

War has become our national industry, like automotives and steel and the railroads once were.

Being in love brings out both the best and the worst in us. One day we're generous and sensitive to a fault, and the next we're not fit to shoot. Our lives become lessons in extremes.

Crime reporting was aggressive in Richmond, an old Virginia city of 220,000, which last year was listed by the FBI as having the second-highest homicide rate

maybe it explains something to you," said marino, who always got impatient with lucy's computer talk. "but it don't explain shit to me.

(Lucy:) Why do you think I was such a little fatso? From eating the junk she bought. Snacks, sodas, and pizza that tastes like cardboard. I have fat cells that will scream for the rest of my life because of Mother. I'll never forgive her.

There's a penalty for trying to do what's right. The dark forces don't like it, and stress will make you sick.

Nietzsche said: When you look into the abyss, it also looks into you.

Then I will myself to feel nothing at all. It's not helpful to react the way a normal person would. I banish what will interfere with my clinical discipline and reason, I run it off and far away from me. After all these years I'm good at emptying myself out.

Disrespect is a symptom of weakness, of smallness, of an existential problem. By acting rude to me he's showing me what he really thinks of himself.

Botox not only helps with wrinkles, it actually makes you feel more relaxed as frowning causes tension.

Obviously people read the books in order to be entertained.

Night fell clean and cold in Dublin, and wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air.

When terrorists find something that works they keep on doing it. It's predictable.

Succinctly put, a crime scene is like an archaeology site. If an excavation is botched or bulldozed away, there's no going back.

Gravity will get you. Life is inclined toward falling. Not standing or flying, indeed, barely sitting.

prostitute he just murdered. It's called The Camden Town Murder

two blocks down from my house? What the hell is going on?" "Nothing good," Marino says. I Google Sonny's Lawn Care. There's no such

When she gave you a meal, she gave you herself.

I've had people turn up to book signings with knives, with guns.

In my forties, my optimism was boundless. I had really good health and tremendous success which allowed me to do anything I wanted.

importantly Lucy's past, and I envision

Somewhere deep within the emptiness of her eyes was a glint of grief, of rage.

on his lips. He's in jeans and loafers, a Red Sox windbreaker

death can be liberating.

I reel in an uncanny intoxication of emotions, on minute bewildered and then frightened then the next, I swing from exhaustion to mania, from depression to tranquility and beneath it all, excitement fizzes as if my blood is filled with gas.

No, Lucy. Your mother doesn't really love men. They are a symptom of her obsessive quest of finding somebody who will make her whole. She doesn't understand that she has to make herself whole.

The biggest risk with a series that goes on this long is that you'll get bored with the character.

Don't announce what you fear could happen or someone evil might make it come true.

the famous American actor Richard Mansfield

Being gay is just one aspect of my very complicated life. I do not wear it on my sleeve.

I had fired 9-millimeters before and didn't like them. they weren't as accurate as my .38 special. they weren't as safe, and they could jam. i had never been one to substitute quantity for quality, and there was no substitution for being informed and practiced

Some people should never be gone, and those that should hang around forever.

Everyone is doing forensics.

People who are unhappy in relationships carry about them a distinct air of discontent and isolation.

Isolation is the cruelest of punishments, and it had never occurred to me that I was something less than human because I wasn't a man.

As was true with every powerful person I had known, and there were but a few, his greatness made him humble and kind.

Has all the trappings of a mystery novel, doesn't it?

I'm always surprised when large numbers of people buy my books.

Punishment isn't punishment if you don't feel punished, if you don't experience the suffering that's intended. It's all about perception. It's all about the way you react to something and that reaction is the real weapon.

there to Baltimore," he says, and Lucy keeps her helicopter in Norwood, just outside of Boston, where she has her own hangar. "I see. That's why she's in a flight suit. She's taking you," and I think about the timing of her showing up as I emerged from the trailer. Benton must have let her know about Briggs's death hours ago. "When I'm done here I'll come meet you," I promise as we approach a black Tahoe with dark-tinted windows and government plates.

there are no more questions when people already have the answers.

Some sort of psychopath, like a serial killer.

Any place where they got to vote on whether English is the official language don't belong in the United States.

The human capacity to be curious has always existed.

Anger helps nothing. What's done is done. Now we move on.

She was a tabula rasa when it came to appropriate behavior. To say Lucy was difficult is like saying lightening is hazardous. It's a statement of fact that will always be a given.

My friends call me Miss Worst Case Scenario.

We create our own worlds. We destroy our own worlds. It is that simple..

The beat of a butterfly wing causes a hurricane on another part of the planet.

I wouldn't want to donate my body for scientific study.

Truth is relative, then. It is about timing. It is about what is safe. Truth is the luxury of the privileged, of people who have plenty of food and are not forced to hide because they are Jews. Truth can destroy, and therefore it is not always wise or even healthy to be truthful.

Because the most treacherous enemy is the one you think you know and understand. The one you trust and love. The one whose darkness threatens your very light, the heart and soul of your very power, and you're none the wiser. Your subjectivity, your bias has rendered you blind, deaf, and dumb. You see what you want to see instead of what's there.

Some people simply want company.

Being with someone who is smart and gives good advice adds tremendously wonderful elements to your life.

He was pushing fifty, with a face life had chewed on, and long wisps of graying hair parted low on one side and combed over his balding pate.

Confessing I didn't, I scribbled the directions on the notepad I always kept by the phone. I hung up and my feet were already on the floor as adrenaline hit my nerves like espresso. The house was quiet. I grabbed my black medical bag, scuffed and worn from years of use. The

A significant portion of the human race has no idea what it is like to be attached to short legs, and I am forever finding myself indignantly pumping along like a handcar in a world of express trains.

When there's lightning, don't stand alone or think you'll be protected by hiding in the trees. Find the nearest ditch and lie as low in it as you can.

The word need is never good. I hope you never use it when you're talking about me,

That's why I think the 'Scarpetta' series has worked so well because people like spending time with this character.

Let's be honest, the world's always been a scary place with very little charm. I try to brush it off as I've brushed off the flu, as I brushed off the death of my father when I was young, as I've brushed off so much since Benton has known me.

I like crazy shoes or unusual cowboy boots and I collect big belt buckles.

I am a fan of Botox.

You've been drawing from a well that you never knew was bottomless and you just found out the unlimited depth of inhumanity,

Fundamental problems are the same for everyone," I reply as we move ahead again, then stop again. "Life, death, sickness, diets, relationships, bills that need to be paid.

If everybody, every day, would try to do one thing that pulls them beyond themselves the world will start being a better place.

First of all, it does not deter crime, the death penalty.

a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing when you're cocky.

When I was in second grade, my mother moved from Miami to this evangelical conservative environment in western North Carolina, two miles down the road from Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth.

*Gone are the days of Benton's childhood, when his sticky fingers dung through caramel-glazed popcorn and peanuts for treasure, such as a plastic whistle or BB game or, best of all, the magic decoding ring that little Benton wore on his index finger, pretending it empowered him to know wgat people thought, what they would do and which monster he would defeat on his next secret mission.
*The toy surprises inside are games printed on folded white paper, cheap as hell, and require the IF of a pigeon.

The greatest gift is our own eyes, sense of smell, and abilities to deduce.

Witnessed the moment of recognition that it was over or it wasn't. The look was never exactly the same. Rage, hate, shock, grief, anguish, terror, scorn, amusement, combinations of them, and nothing. As different as people are different.

You can't cure a chipped plate. All you can do is live with it or throw it out.