Patricia Cornwell Quotes

Do no harm and leave the world a better place than you found it.

rain slowly slides down the glass as if the night is crying.

I wouldn't want to assume that all men are like you. If I did, I know I would give them up entirely

The dead have never bothered me. It's the living that I fear.

Survival my only hope. Success my only revenge

Grief was like a seizure that shook me like a storm.

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

You have to live where you wake up, even if someone else dreamed you there.

Leaves covered pavement like soggy cereal.

What the hell. You die. Everybody dies. So you die healthy. So what?

And so to read is, in truth, to be in the constant act of creation. The old lady on the bus with her Orwell, the businessman on the Tube with Patricia Cornwell, the teenager roaring through Capote -- they are not engaged in idle pleasure. Their heads are on fire. Their hearts are flooding. With a book, you are the landscape, the sets, the snow, the hero, the kiss -- you are the mathematical calculation that plots the trajectory of the blazing, crashing zeppelin. You -- pale, punchable reader -- are terraforming whole worlds in your head, which will remain with you until the day you die. These books are as much a part of you as your guts and your bone. And when your guts fail and your bones break, Narnia, or Jamaica Inn, or Gormenghast will still be there; as pin-sharp and bright as the day you first imagined them -- hiding under the bedclothes, sitting on the bus. Exhausted, on a rainy day, weeping over the death of someone you never met, and who was nothing more than words until you transfused them with your time, and your love, and the imagination you constantly dismiss as "just being a bit of a bookworm.

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

But caffeine, cigarettes and cholesterol, the grim reapers of the common man - God forbid I should give them up.

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.

The world is full of people who mean no harm and cause a great deal of it.

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

I feel something change in me... I feel a flat calm, a detachment, the way I get when something is too much and yet l must function and in fact function at the highest level. I know what I'm in for, only a fool wouldn't know that...

Life brings with it strangeness and surprises and upsets

You artists think you’re the only ones who can relate to these things. Many of us have the same feelings, the same emptiness, the same loneliness. But we don’t have the tools to verbalize them. So we carry on, we struggle. Feelings are feelings. I think people’s feelings are pretty much the same all over the world.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

You know what the best security system is? Window shades.

The truth is none of us always does what’s right or fair.

Blood squirted as his transected femoral artery haemorrhaged to the rhythm of his horrible heart. - From Potter's Field

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.

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.

Thoughts are odd misfires

Não imaginava o que seria preciso para me levar à loucura. Se calhar era como morrer. Depois de uma pessoas se passar para o outro lado não se sente a diferença. (Kay Scarpetta)

No one, good or evil, ceases to exist; life is energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed; it is recycled.

You don’t get over it, I think. Some things you won’t get over, not ever, you can’t . . .

When all else fails, I cook. Some

It is disheartening when a thinking person is forced to admit that many clichés are true. There is no justice on this earth.

She can love one minute and feel nothing the next, not even anger or pain, because after a while those, too, will pass.

I built a fire and sat facing a window of darkness where at sunrise I knew I would find the sea.

When violence occurs anywhere, it is everybody’s problem,

People can burn and beat love out of you. They really can kill it, and it’s not your fault you don’t feel it anymore, and how liberating it is to finally realize that. Love isn’t for better or for worse, through thick or thin. It damn well shouldn’t be.

The public is blaming the city officials, who in turn have to find someone else to blame. It's the nature of the beast. If the police, the politicians, can pass the buck on down the line, they will.

(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.

And so to read is, in truth, to be in the constant act of creation. The old lady on the bus with her Orwell, the businessman on the Tube with Patricia Cornwell, the teenager roaring through Capote -- they are not engaged in idle pleasure. Their heads are on fire. Their hearts are flooding. With a book, you are the landscape, the sets, the snow, the hero, the kiss -- you are the mathematical calculation the plots the trajectory of the blazing, crashing zeppelin. You -- pale, punchable reader -- are terraforming whole worlds in your head, which will remain with you until the day you die. These books are as much a part of you as your guts and your bone. And when your guts fail and your bones break, Narnia, or Jamaica Inn, or Gormenghast will still be there; as pin-sharp and bright as the day you first imagined them -- hiding under the bedclothes, sitting on the bus. Exhausted, on a rainy day, weeping over the death of someone you never met, and who was nothing more than words until you transformed them with your time, and your love, and the imagination you constantly dismiss as "just being a bit of a bookworm.

I didn't know what I wanted. Maybe I never had. The emotional distance was never worth the togetherness, and yet I didn't learn. Nothing had changed. Had he reached for me, I would have forgotten to behave sensibly. Desire has no reason, and the need for intimacy had never stopped. I had not conjured up the images in years, his lips on mine, his hands, the urgency of our hunger. Now I was tormented by the memories.

...nothing succeeds like success.

It was raining in Richmond on Friday, June 6.

You’re only as good as the people around you.

It’s not true that we are never given more than we can bear. Only it isn’t given. It simply happens.

a force to reckon with. I’m sure of that. “The rear

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

Hate makes you stupid.

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

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.

Gordian knot, a knot impossible to unravel, and Alexander the Great solved the problem by cutting through it with his sword, in other words by cheating.

The older I got, the more I was of the opinion that love can be experienced in many different ways. There is no right or wrong way to love, only in how it is expressed.

At some level we intend everything we do. That’s why it’s extremely important to root out our intentions before they uproot us.

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

If you have enough bad things happen to you in life, others begin to privately question if you invite them, are a magnet that attracts misfortune or danger or dysfunction.

I tended to hold love hostage in my heart because, if expressed, I feared it might abandon me as many people in my life had.

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

That’s one of the perks if you’re sick. You already feel bad enough and then people make you feel worse because they don’t want to bother you.

When you dine with the devil use a long spoon, and I’ve repeatedly preached that to him, too.

Charity is giving to someone what he needs versus what you want to give him.

it's hard as hell to get politicians excited about what we do out here, or about what you do, kay." "the problem is, the dead don't vote," i said. "i've heard of cases where they did.

I behave myself, but it doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Being faithful to my commitments doesn’t mean thoughts don’t cross my mind or that I’m foolish enough to believe I’m not capable.

Her case in particular haunts me. Despite decades of autopsies and crime scenes, I can honestly say I’ve never encountered the extreme brutality shown in the only existing scene photographs from the Ripper case.

People often say they don't dream, when it's more accurate to say that they don't remember their dreams. It gets under our skin, Kay. All of it does. We just manage to cage in most of the emotions so they don't devour us.

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.

People fail, everything fails, the magic we’re born believing in and working for and then doubting and finally fearing eventually rusts, rots, fades, breaks down, withers, dies, and turns to dust, and for me the response is always the same. I clean up. It’s what I do and

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.

And in an odd way, realizing all this has given me an unexpected satisfaction and a little more self-respect. I have changed, and it’s for the better. You really can’t love unconditionally. People can burn and beat love out of you. They really can kill it, and it’s not your fault you don’t feel it anymore, and how liberating it is to finally realize that. Love isn’t for better or for worse, through thick or thin. It damn well shouldn’t be.

When you dine with the devil use a long spoon,

he who survives writes the rules.

death can be liberating.

I was reminded of the old pain, a pain once so intense it was physical.

every time you get rid of one toad there's another to take his place

Serenity comes from knowing what you can and can’t change,” Nancy

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.

Most of us feel isolated and paranoid during stressful times. We feel alone in the wilderness.

The dead have never bothered me. It is the living I fear.

about the timing.

Maybe nothing phased her until she was beaten to death on her marble floor, and I envision a blitz attack.

I didn’t want her to be like me, robbed of innocence and idealism, baptized in the bloody waters of randomness and cruelty, the fabric of trust forever torn.

Strung himself up from the rafters in the barn,” she went on as we worked. “Was being treated for a drink problem and depression. More of the same. Unemployment, women, drugs. They

Technology made everything better for a while and now it seems life is circling back around to the dark ages.

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.

But to whom much is given much also can be taken,

Vulgarity is inversely proportionate to intelligence and facility with languages. Profuse swearing is generally associated with a low IQ, a limited vocabulary and uncontrollable hostility.

franklin," she said sternly, "you know your daddy told you not to play with matches!" "no he didn’t," franklin countered. "he told me not to let him catch me playing with matches. and I’m not going to let him catch me.

We zijn ons maar zelden bewust van de primitieve angsten die zich onder onze rationele reacties verbergen.En de enige manier om ze uit te bannen is door al het licht aan te doen. Denk je dat je daar sterk genoeg voor bent?

I’m too old for change,” she explained. “I’m too old to pursue good health and new relationships. The past breathes for me. It is my life. You are young, Dr. Scarpetta. Someday you will see what it is like to look back. You will find it inescapable. You will find your personal history drawing you back into familiar rooms where, ironically, events occurred that set into motion your eventual estrangement from life. You will find the hard furniture of heartbreak more comfortable and the people who failed you friendlier with time. You will find yourself running back into the arms of the pain you once ran away from. It is easier. That’s all I can say. It is easier.” “Do

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 per capita in the United States. It wasn’t uncommon for forensic pathologists from the British Commonwealth to spend a month at my office to learn more about gunshot wounds. It wasn’t uncommon for career cops like Pete Marino to leave the madness of New York or Chicago only to find Richmond was worse.

As for the crab, honey, listen up. One egg slightly beaten, one-half teaspoon dry mustard, a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce, four unsalted soda crackers, crushed. Chop up an onion, a Vidalia if you’re still hoarding any from summer. One green pepper, chop that. A teaspoon or two of parsley, salt and pepper to taste.” “Sounds fabulous,” I gratefully said. “Bev, what would I do without you?” “Now you gently mix all that together and shape it into patties.

All this when I know human relationships are not founded on reason any more than my roses are fertilized with debate. I know seeking asylum behind the wall of intellect and rationality is a selfish retreating into self-protectiveness at the expense of another's well-being.

For that matter I didn't understand Civil War reenactments. Why would you celebrate the biggest thing you ever lost? I quickly learned not to give voice to such skepticisms, and when asked if I was a Yankee I said I didn't follow baseball closely. That usually shut the person up.

When you're going through something like this, you don't know what you're doing, even if you think you do. And no one can really understand what it's like unless they've suffered the same thing. You feel isolated. You go places and people avoid you, are afraid to meet your eyes and make conversation because they don't know what to say. So they whisper to each other ... You feel as if you're living inside a cave. You're afraid to be alone, afraid to be with others, afraid to be awake, and afraid to go to sleep because of how awful it feels when morning comes. You run like hell and wear yourself out. As I look back, I can see that everything I've done since Henna died was half crazy.

This day could be our last and if it’s in the cards then so be it. I’ll prevent any bad thing I can. That’s my life’s mission. I also know how to accept finality, to give myself up to what I can’t begin to change. I don’t want to die. But I refuse to fear it. I wait for it without dread because there’s no logic in living a tragedy before it’s happened.

been programmed in the womb or maybe at conception and there’s no escaping. The roulette wheel spins and stops and your number comes up and that’s what you are no matter how hard you try or even if you don’t try at all. You are what you are, you are what you’re not, and other events and other people just enhance the angel or devil, the winner or the loser in you. It’s all about the spinning of the wheel, whether it’s hitting the winning home run in the World Series or being raped. Decided

*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.

Fucking stupid to park there to begin with.” “Usually the bigger worry is regular people and the media thinking they can poke around. But no marked car? Okay. There goes your deterrent. Have it your way. You got any idea why the entrance lights weren’t on last night?” Marino said. “I only know that they weren’t. It’s in my report.” “They’re on now.” Gusts of wind hit them like invisible waves of a stormy surf, and Marino felt as if he was about to be washed off the roof. His hands were stiff, and he pulled his sleeves over them. “Then my guess would be the killer turned them off last night,” Morales said. “Kind of a strange thing to do once he’s already inside the building.” “Maybe he turned them off when he was leaving. So nobody would see him, in case someone was walking by, driving by.” “Then you’re probably not talking about Oscar doing it. Since he never left.

on without anesthesia. In a letter he describes: “I suffered agonies, as they related all to me, and did violence to myself in keeping to my seat. I could scarcely bear it.” Surgery on the penis, the rectum or the anus would have been a terrifying torture, especially if the patient was a five-year-old foreigner who couldn’t have possessed the coping skills, the insight or perhaps sufficient fluency in English to understand what was happening to him. It’s awful to consider what he might have imagined when a nurse changed his dressings, administered his medicines or appeared at his bedside with a supply of leeches if he had an inflammation believed to be due to an excess of blood. The nurse may have had a sweet bedside manner. She may have been strict and humorless. A typical requirement in those days was that she was single or widowed, ensuring that all her time could be devoted to the hospital. Nurses were underpaid. They worked long, grueling hours and were exposed to extraordinarily unpleasant conditions