I'm always surprised when large numbers of people buy my books.
I like to get to bed with a clear head.
Even if you are a best-seller you feel insecure because it is all so unpredictable.
You have to live where you wake up, even if someone else dreamed you there.
I'm very, very sensitive to pain and to people who suffer.
On the last morning of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, I built a fire and sat facing a window of darkness where at sunrise I knew I would find the sea.
In my forties, my optimism was boundless. I had really good health and tremendous success which allowed me to do anything I wanted.
I wouldn't want to donate my body for scientific study.
I hate the term "mystery". That's not what I write. I think the Scarpetta novels are much more character-driven than an average puzzle solver. Writing should be like a pane of glass - there's another world on the other side and your vision carries you there, but you're not aware of having passed through a barrier to get there.
To almost die is to know that one day you will, and to never again feel the same about anything.
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.
You can't cure a chipped plate. All you can do is live with it or throw it out.
I dropped chemistry. I practically blew up the lab in college.
Do no harm & leave the world a better place than you found it.
I find it difficult to attend autopsies. Especially the smells.
I didn't invent forensic science and medicine. I just was one of the first people to recognize how interesting it is.
The biggest risk with a series that goes on this long is that you'll get bored with the character.
Being with someone who is smart and gives good advice adds tremendously wonderful elements to your life.
I refuse to sit on my laurels.
Even when I am writing I usually take a break around lunchtime and go for a little walk to clear out my head.
Survival my only hope. Success my only revenge
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.
I wouldn't want to assume that all men are like you. If I did, I know I would give them up entirely
In the first person, the readers feel smart, like it's them solving the case.
I won't put myself in a position where I'm vulnerable.
Murder is about power and the more powerful women get the more it will change the good that they do and the bad that they do.
I constantly remind people that crime isn't solved by technology; it's solved by people.
I am an Armani and a Dolce & Gabbana kind of a person.
My fans want me to talk to them. And even if they want to be critical, I want to hear what they've got to say.
I've always believed human blood is red because it really needs to draw attention to itself.
I believe the root of all evil is abuse of power.
Leaves covered pavement like soggy cereal.
Everyone is doing forensics.
Life brings with it strangeness and surprises and upsets
I don't do things that are illegal.
Has all the trappings of a mystery novel, doesn't it?
But when I was a little kid, I was always writing stories and illustrating little books that I would create.
rain slowly slides down the glass as if the night is crying.
With DNA, the ability to find out a lot more with a lot less has increased our ability for identification.
America is the most violent democracy in the world. It's something that's met with great shock, horror, and mystery when I travel to other countries. They ask, Why are there so many shootings in America? Why does everyone own a gun?
And suddenly the world was filled with wooden faces and flat voices - and, you were alone.
Being gay is just one aspect of my very complicated life. I do not wear it on my sleeve.
My friends call me Miss Worst Case Scenario.
When I was at college there were two things I vowed I'd never do. One was go to a funeral and the other was deal with computers. And then I ended up being a computer programmer in a morgue.
If everybody, every day, would try to do one thing that pulls them beyond themselves the world will start being a better place.
Thoughts are odd misfires.
Grief was like a seizure that shook me like a storm.
Night fell clean and cold in Dublin, and wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air.
I've never taken a scalpel to a dead body.
First of all, it does not deter crime, the death penalty.
We create our own worlds. We destroy our own worlds. It is that simple.
The dead have never bothered me. It's the living that I fear.
I stop working at about 3 p.m. on Fridays.
I like crazy shoes or unusual cowboy boots and I collect big belt buckles.
Botox not only helps with wrinkles, it actually makes you feel more relaxed as frowning causes tension.
