Tess Gerritsen Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Tess Gerritsen.
Famous Quotes By Tess Gerritsen
In China, the dead are not forgotten - my relatives cheerfully pointed out all the niches of deceased friends and family, as if gesturing at the homes of the living. — Tess Gerritsen
Had she always been so insulated from human contact, like a bloom encased in frost? — Tess Gerritsen
When everything goes wrong in our lives, it's natural to look around for someone -or something- to blame. — Tess Gerritsen
My brother and I spent our childhood in movie theaters screaming. I decided early on that that was the epitome of entertainment. I'm always trying for that same level of adrenaline in my books. — Tess Gerritsen
That's what makes life an adventure. Sometimes you just have to jump in and trust in the universe. — Tess Gerritsen
Maybe it's because I can't have him that I feel safe wanting him. He's beyond my reach, so he won't hurt me. — Tess Gerritsen
Robbie Brace, a practical man, had chosen a practical field. Oh, but how it depressed him. — Tess Gerritsen
I met my husband, Jacob, in medical school. We married and went to live in Hawaii where his family lived. It was very beautiful, but I wasn't used to being on an island and needed wide open spaces. Eventually we moved to Maine, New England. — Tess Gerritsen
She had never paid much attention to the heart beating in her own chest. As she watched the pattern traced by Korsak's, she became aware of her own pulse. She had always taken her heartbeat for granted, and she wondered what it would be like, to hang on every beat, fearful that the next might not come. That the throb of life in her chest would suddenly go still. — Tess Gerritsen
Think of what it means to manually strangle someone. How personal it is. The close contact. Skin to skin. Your hands against her flesh. Pressing her throat as you feel her life drain away.' Rizzoli — Tess Gerritsen
We're all violent. Especially when it concerns the ones we love. They're intimately connected, love and hate. — Tess Gerritsen
If you don't love him, if you don't even care about him, then seeing him now shouldn't be all that painful. Should it? — Tess Gerritsen
For years I've wanted to write a book about mummies, and had been following the science of mummy CT scans when the premise for 'The Keepsake' occurred to me: what if an 'ancient' mummy turns out to have a bullet in its leg? How does a modern murder victim get turned into a mummy? — Tess Gerritsen
Evil doesn't die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we've been touched by it once, it doesn't mean we're immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice. — Tess Gerritsen
Now they were probably telling one another: Yeah, I knew something wasn't right. Everyone's brilliant in retrospect. — Tess Gerritsen
It's just something I'll have to live with... The possibility of getting sick. Not knowing if I'll live another two years or forty years. I keep telling myself, I could walk outside and get hit by a bus. That's the way life is. Just surviving another day comes with its own risk. — Tess Gerritsen
Including four mice posed with tiny china cups, seated around a miniature table. A Mad Hatter's grotesque tea party. — Tess Gerritsen
Since my romance novels had all been thrillers as well, it wasn't such a leap for me to move into the straight thriller genre. The most difficult part, I think, was being accepted as a thriller writer. Once you've written romance, unfortunately, critics will never stop calling you a 'former romance author.' — Tess Gerritsen
Muscles burned and her knees ached, but she did not stop. She owed that much to him and would not abandon him a second — Tess Gerritsen
I've just confirmed every bad joke ever told about second violin players. Question: How many second violinists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: They can't go that high. Gerda — Tess Gerritsen
Even if I never sold another book, I'd keep writing, because the stories are here, in my head. Stories that just need to be told. I love watching a plot unfold, and feeling the surprise when the unexpected happens. — Tess Gerritsen
I look at the others seated around the campfire. Mr. and Mrs. Matsunaga are diligently reviewing the day's photos on his camera. Vivian and Sylvia lounge in their low-cut tank tops, oozing pheromones that make poor, awkward Elliot grovel for attention as usual. Are you gals chilly? Can I get your sweaters? — Tess Gerritsen
Parenthood is nothing but doubts. — Tess Gerritsen
We are not as impervious as we think we are. - Dr Maura Isles — Tess Gerritsen
But human anatomy and human endurance are variable. While the much younger nun had succumbed to her injuries, Ursula's heart kept beating, her body unwilling to surrender its soul. Not a miracle, merely one of those quirks of fate, like the child who survives a fall from a sixth-floor window, and is only scratched. — Tess Gerritsen
Ha! Kids! You have no idea what you put your parents through, either. Wait till you have your own, you'll see. That's when you'll know what it really feels like." .. "What what feels like?" ... "Love," said Angela. — Tess Gerritsen
I spent my childhood watching every scary movie that Hollywood ever made. And I think that gave me the best education for storytelling. It also made me want to reproduce the scary moments that I felt, sitting in a theater at the age of 5. — Tess Gerritsen
No matter how much you try to maintain order in your life, no matter how careful you are to guard against mistakes, against imperfections, there is always some smudge, some flaw, lurking out of sight. Waiting to surprise you. — Tess Gerritsen
That's what falling in love really amounted to, your brain on drugs. Adrenaline and dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. Chemical insanity, celebrated by poets. — Tess Gerritsen
Beware the ignorant, Lorenzo. They're the most dangerous enemy of all, because they are everywhere. — Tess Gerritsen
I think what medical training does is it gives you the language, the tools to look up facts. I think medical training gives you a sense of how to approach a problem, how to look at symptoms and go down the list of what it might be. — Tess Gerritsen
Men that age aren't known for their superior judgment. — Tess Gerritsen
Because I never plan anything out ahead of time, I'm always in the process of learning about my characters. Without a biographical sketch to guide me, I discover things about my heroines as the stories unfold. Only in 'Body Double' did I discover that Maura's mother was a serial killer. — Tess Gerritsen
I think of all media, television is the most powerful when it comes to selling books, because when you have a feature film, yeah, there's a rush. But then after that month is over and the movie goes out of release, that's it. — Tess Gerritsen
Medicine is probably one of the best backgrounds for a writer to find stories. I always think cops and docs have the best background because we see so much of human behavior, such a range of human emotions. — Tess Gerritsen
Life is a series of complications. We have to deal with each one as it comes. — Tess Gerritsen
Society thinks of violent acts as manifestations of evil or immorality. We're told we have ultimate control over our own behavior, that each and every one of us has the free will to choose not to hurt another human being. But it's not just morality that guides us. Biology does as well. Our frontal lobs helps us integrate thoughts and actions. They help us weight the consequences of those actions. Without such control, we'd give in to every wild impulse. — Tess Gerritsen
I find a package of spaghetti, and I remember seeing bacon and eggs and a block of Parmesan cheese in the refrigerator. I'll make spaghetti carbonara, the perfect — Tess Gerritsen
Death does not discriminate; whether saints or sinners, in the end, all are equal. — Tess Gerritsen
I have minor characters who are Asian-American, and I've been using them throughout my career, but they've never taken center stage, they've never been really powerful, they've never expressed some of the experiences I had growing up in the U.S. Johnny Tam is the first one. — Tess Gerritsen
Everything's a gamble, love most of all. — Tess Gerritsen
But that doesn't explain the apparently random killing of women and children. No, there was something else behind it, the same thing that's inspired ritual murder cults around the world. Vast numbers of people have been sacrificed for a variety of beliefs. Whether you kill to terrify your enemies or to appease gods like Zeus or Kali, it all gets down to one thing: power. — Tess Gerritsen
From the moment we're born, death is our final destination. Only the date and time of our arrival is unknown. — Tess Gerritsen
I was a writer first, and knew I'd be a storyteller at age seven. But since my parents are very practical, they urged me to go into a profession that would be far more secure, so I went to medical school. — Tess Gerritsen
'Lonesome Dove' by Larry McMurtry and 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver have stuck with me throughout my life, and I think that says a lot about an author's writing. — Tess Gerritsen
I think fiction, for me, is a way of trying to understand why people do the things they do - and trying to explain what is, at heart, illogical. — Tess Gerritsen
The human mind was expert at filling in missing details and confidently turning them into facts, even if those facts were merely imagined. — Tess Gerritsen
I know there's evil in the world, and there always has been. But you don't need to believe in Satan or demons to explain it. Human beings are perfectly capable of evil all by themselves. — Tess Gerritsen
When one hears hoofbeats, medical students are taught, one must think of horses, not zebras. But the doctor who sees my blood count will surely think of horses. He will arrive at a perfectly logical conclusion. It will no occur to him that, this time, it is truly a zebra galloping by. — Tess Gerritsen
That's what I imagined, a giant game park with comfortable lodges and roads. At a minimum, roads. According to the website, there'd be "bush camping" involved, but I pictured lovely big tents with showers and flush toilets. I didn't think I'd be paying for the privilege of squatting in the bushes. — Tess Gerritsen
I'd been writing stories since I was a child. I wrote little books for my mom and bound them myself with needle and thread. Mostly, they were about my pets. — Tess Gerritsen
There's a whole history that never appears in the Bible, Detective. A secret history you can only find in Canaanite or Hebrew legends. They talk about the marriage between Adam and a free-spirited woman, a cunning temptress who refused to obey her husband, or to lie beneath him as a docile wife should. Instead she demanded wild sex in every position and taunted him when he couldn't satisfy her. She was the world's first truly liberated female, and she wasn't afraid to seek the pleasures of the flesh. — Tess Gerritsen
I organise jam sessions every month. We have an open session, so everyone knows about it, and we can get as many as 30 people showing up at the house. Somebody will play a tune, and everyone will pick up on it. My best friends are all musicians. — Tess Gerritsen
Writing is very much an emotional process; it requires you to be very in touch with your feelings. That is the opposite of what you're taught as a medical doctor. We're supposed to be detached and logical. Maybe because I started off as a writer and then became a doctor, I'm able to integrate those two. — Tess Gerritsen
The most intimate feeling people can share is neither love nor hate, but pain. — Tess Gerritsen
Prey animals such as zebras and antelope have eyes at the sides of their heads, but a predator's eyes face forward. Always show the cat your face. Let her see where your eyes are, and she'll know you're a predator, too. She'll think twice before attacking. — Tess Gerritsen
Fierce-looking, a coal-eyed brunette with a gaze direct as lasers. She — Tess Gerritsen
Why do we always treat kids like the enemy?" "Because they so often behave like an alien species? — Tess Gerritsen
Mom and I often talked about the trip we'd someday take together to the 'city of eternal spring' where she was born. In Kunming, she said, the fruits are sweeter, the mountains look like Chinese paintings, and the weather is always perfect. — Tess Gerritsen
I raised two sons, and I know that even though they're bigger and stronger than I am, they're still little boys inside. They still cry, they still hurt. So whenever I write a male character, no matter how 'heroic' he may be, I think of my sons. And I remember that every man was once a little boy. — Tess Gerritsen
My mother is an immigrant from China, and she filled my head with stories about ghosts and fighting monks in China, so the world of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' was a very familiar one. — Tess Gerritsen
After years of feeling like a misfit, I've realized that the world is full of other misfits, all of us identifying with Hobbits - - the little guys whom no one else respects. And who quietly end up changing the course of history. — Tess Gerritsen
Is this all we are? A necklace of chemicals? Where, in the double helix, does the soul lie? — Tess Gerritsen
My name is Mila, and this is my journey.
There are so many places where I could begin the story. I could start in the town where I grew up, in Kryvicy, on the banks of the Servac River, in the district of Miadziel. I could begin when I was eight years old, on the day my mother died, or when I was twelve, and my father fell beneath the wheels of the neighbour's truck. But I think I should begin my story here, in the Mexican desert, so far from my home in Belarus. This is where I lost my innocence. This is where my dreams died. — Tess Gerritsen
I believe one has to get one's hand dirty or you're nothing but a hobbyist. — Tess Gerritsen
ADD has turned into a catchall for all childhood misbehavior. When a student's failing in class, or he gets into mischief, — Tess Gerritsen
This is the way modern men do battle, not with spear and sword, but with credit cards. My platinum beats your gold. Poor Elliot with his unisex Minolta is left in the dust, — Tess Gerritsen
Throughout most of my life, I've tried to downplay my Chinese heritage because I wanted so much to be an American. I was the only Asian kid in my elementary school, and I longed to be like everyone else. I insisted on American food; I was embarrassed by my mother's poor English. — Tess Gerritsen
The hunting of monsters is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for those who feel bound by such trivial doctrines as law or national borders. — Tess Gerritsen
No kiss, no embrace, could bring two people any closer than we are right now. The most intimate emotion two people can share is neither love nor desire but pain. — Tess Gerritsen
A project like 'Rizzoli & Isles' is something you can't pursue. It's something that comes to you ... I like to call it 'fairy dust.' And it happened without my having to do anything. — Tess Gerritsen
She siged, a sound of regret for childhood transgressions, for all the lessons learned too late. — Tess Gerritsen
I have hidden my race for 22 books. I have hidden behind my married name, which is very Caucasian, because I didn't feel safe coming out with it. I didn't feel that the market would really accept me. I think I felt it's time to start bringing in an Asian-American point of view. — Tess Gerritsen
The best ideas are those that really affect me emotionally - those are the ones you never forget. You think to yourself, 'I want to write that book', for years; those are the ideas that I love to work with, and 'The Bone Garden' was one of them. — Tess Gerritsen
My most successful books, the ones that I feel the strongest about, are the ones that started with a premise that for me was deeply emotional. — Tess Gerritsen
With every year that I grow older, I also draw closer to (my loved ones) to the day when we will once again be together. So I march through the deepening shadows, serene and unafraid, because I know that at the end of my journey they will be waiting for me. — Tess Gerritsen
When you shine a bright light, a secret loses all its power. — Tess Gerritsen
Does he think it's so easy? One smile, one touch and all is forgiven -Dr Maura Isles — Tess Gerritsen
IF INDEED THESE VARIOUS ATTACKS IN DIFFERENT STATES ARE LINKED, then we're dealing with a set of highly complex ritual behaviors," said Dr. Lawrence Zucker. A criminal psychologist who served as consultant to Boston PD, — Tess Gerritsen
My father was second-generation Chinese-American, born in 1923 in California. My mother emigrated to the States from China when she was in her early twenties, in part to escape the political turmoil in China. — Tess Gerritsen
'I am a bad mother.' Every Christmas, this is what I think because the holiday season fills me with such anxiety. I'm sure that other mothers are happily baking cookies, decorating trees, and finding perfect gifts for everyone. — Tess Gerritsen
There is no better test of character than when you're tossed into crisis. That's when we see one's true colors shine through. So I try my best to make my characters personally involved in the plot, in a way that stresses them and tests them. — Tess Gerritsen
And like a drowning woman who chooses the black sea instead of rescue, she did not take it. — Tess Gerritsen
The dead do not hurt you; only the living do. — Tess Gerritsen
You can study a face all you want, but you never really know what lies beneath the mask. — Tess Gerritsen
I'm a dinosaur, he thought, lumbering through a world where truthtellers
are despised. — Tess Gerritsen
She was the only woman in the homicide unit, and already there had been problems between her and another detective, charges of sexual harassment, countercharges of unrelenting bitchiness. — Tess Gerritsen
Motherhood didn't make you stronger; it made you vulnerable and afraid of what death could steal from you. — Tess Gerritsen
In 'Last to Die,' three children living in different cities are the only survivors when their families are slaughtered. Two years later, their foster families are murdered, and these three orphans are once again the only survivors. — Tess Gerritsen
Richard subtly slipped in the fact that he is thriller writer Richard Renwick, creator of MI5 hero Jackman Tripp. Unfortunately none of them had ever heard of Richard or his hero, which led to a prickly first day on safari. But now he's back in form, doing what he does best: charming his audience. Laying it on too thick, I think. Far too thick. But if I complain about it later, I know exactly what he'll say. It's what writers have to do, Millie. We have to be sociable and bring in new readers. Funny how Richard never wastes his time being sociable with — Tess Gerritsen
No man easily admits that he is afraid. — Tess Gerritsen
Because my dad's Chinese-American, and they're very concrete, he said, 'There's no money to be made in literature.' So he told me to go into the sciences. And I was a good girl. And I did what Daddy said. And that's how I ended up being a doctor. But you know, you just can't stamp out that desire to tell stories. — Tess Gerritsen
The heart makes its choices without weighing the consequences. It doesn't look ahead to the lonely nights that follow. — Tess Gerritsen
Some people make choices hoping for the best; Korsak had made a choice simply to avoid the worst. — Tess Gerritsen
But death wouldn't deter her killer. It would whet his appetite. He'd look at her corpse and see only an object of desire. Someone he can control. She doesn't resist him. She is cool, passive flesh, yielding to any and all indignities. She is the perfect lover. The — Tess Gerritsen
Because we bear responsibility for our own actions alone. Not for anyone else's. — Tess Gerritsen