Patricia Cornwell Quotations

Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge.

I didn't invent forensic science and medicine. I just was one of the first people to recognize how interesting it is.

I believe the root of all evil is abuse of power.

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.

Even when I am writing I usually take a break around lunchtime and go for a little walk to clear out my head.

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

With DNA, the ability to find out a lot more with a lot less has increased our ability for identification.

In the first person, the readers feel smart, like it's them solving the case.

I dropped chemistry. I practically blew up the lab in college.

Even if you are a best-seller you feel insecure because it is all so unpredictable.

I've always believed human blood is red because it really needs to draw attention to itself.

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

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

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.

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

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

I constantly remind people that crime isn't solved by technology; it's solved by people.

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

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

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.

My friends call me Miss Worst Case Scenario.

I find it difficult to attend autopsies. Especially the smells.

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

If it's really beautiful weather, sometimes I might take a helicopter out. I got my license in 1999.

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.

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

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

I like to get to bed with a clear head.

I won't put myself in a position where I'm vulnerable.

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

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

I've never taken a scalpel to a dead body.

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.

Obviously people read the books in order to be entertained.

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

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

The human capacity to be curious has always existed.

Jack the Ripper is caught. We have done it together.

If it turns out that something indisputably proved that this notorious killer was someone other than Walter Richard Sickert, I would be the first to offer congratulations and retract my accusations.

My ongoing investigation is far from an obsession, but an excellent opportunity to provide a platform for applying modern science to a very old, highly visible case in the hope that we might learn something that could help solve modern crimes.

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

We have a really serious problem on our hands, and TV has made it so much worse. CSI is fun to watch and entertaining. But, more and more, jury members believe that police and scientists work every case with this huge bag of tricks, and if they don't, the victim and jurors feel the case has not been adequately investigated.

Because if somebody literally proves me wrong not only will I feel horrible about it, but I will look terrible.

Benton Wesley was taking off his running shoes in my kitchen when I ran to him, my heart tripping over fear and hate and remembered horror.

The Ripper case is not one to be conclusively solved by DNA or fingerprints, ... and in a way, this is good. Society has come to expect the wizardry of forensic science to solve all crimes, but without the human element of deductive skills, teamwork, very hard investigation, and smart prosecution, evidence means nothing.

Well, I don't know. But if you can, I'll take my chances. I'd like them to prove he didn't do it.

Both were cremated so fast. To this day, it really bothers me. One minute they were there; the next minute they weren't. It's like a door that isn't quite closed.

Putnam has done a wonderful job for me. Why would I want to be published anywhere else?

That morning, summer sulked and gathered darkly over Charlotte, and heat shimmered on pavement. Traffic teemed, people pushing forward to promise as they drove through new construction, and the past was bulldozed away.

It's criminal if successful authors don't support literacy. I challenge them all to write a check.

I know from Lucy's voice that she is scared. Rarely is my brilliant, forceful, helicopter-piloting, fitness-obsessed, federal-law-enforcement-agent niece scared.

They won't get a hotel room on the 25th floor. They know a ladder won't reach that high. So they stay 15 and below. And wherever they go, they're looking for fire exits.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

Leaves covered pavement like soggy cereal.

I don't do things that are illegal.

Everyone is doing forensics.

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

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

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

Survival my only hope. Success my only revenge

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

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

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

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

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

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 refuse to sit on my laurels.

Life brings with it strangeness and surprises and upsets

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

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

Thoughts are odd misfires.