Body of Evidence Quotes

“Has all the trappings of a mystery novel, doesn't it?”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“I was reminded of the old pain, a pain once so intense it was physical.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“I intended to beat down any lingering resistance with bluntness.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Most of us feel isolated and paranoid during stressful times. We feel alone in the wilderness.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Some people simply want company.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Like every other mortal who has ever been touched by suicide, I had the fallacious belief that I could have done something to stop it.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Beryl was a songbird born in a storm, a ragged bit of beautiful color clinging to the branches of a terrible life.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“I would watch sunlight dance over the sea and say prayers to a woman named Beryl Madison whose terrible death had given new meaning to my life and taught me to love again.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“They can have Jack the Ripper for a patient and they don’t care. They’ll still lie to you, tuck the animal in bed and spoon-feed him chicken soup like he’s Mr. Apple Pie America.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Well, I do. Back in New York I emptied my gun on this animal who’s freaked out on PCP. Hit the bastard four times in the upper body and it didn’t even slow him down. It was like something out of Stephen King, the guy coming at me like the friggin’ living dead.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“No way, José. No way I’m getting bit by no goddamn mosquito in the AIDS capital of America. And talking to a bunch of queers ain’t my idea of a good time.” “Have you gotten the Florida police to check out her contacts down there?” I asked seriously. “A couple of them said they poked around. Talk about a sorry assignment. They was afraid to eat anything, drink the water. One of the queerbaits from the restaurant she wrote about in her letters is dying of AIDS even as we speak. The cops had to wear gloves the entire time.” “During the interviews?” “Oh, yeah. Surgical masks, too—at least when they was talking to the guy dying. Didn’t come up with nothing helpful, none of the information worth a damn.” “I guess not,” I commented. “You treat people like lepers and they’re not likely to open up to you.” “You ask me, they ought to saw off that part of Florida and send it drifting out to sea.” “Well, fortunately,” I said, “nobody asked you.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Your homophobia really is rabid, not to mention tiresome, Marino. You should be careful. People might wonder about you.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Why was it I always got a seat with a footrest that didn’t work?”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“I felt guilty. Like every other mortal who has ever been touched by suicide, I had the fallacious belief that I could have done something to stop it.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“It has always seemed appropriate to me that the Academy decided to locate its Behavioral Science Unit closer to hell than heaven.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Reclusiveness does peculiar things to one’s mind. Turns it inside out, puts a spin on thoughts and ideas until they begin to bounce off center and at crazy angles. I think Beryl was the only person my brother ever loved. He clung to her. He had an overwhelming need to possess her, to keep her wedded to him. When he thought she was betraying him, that he no longer had power over her, his madness became more extreme.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“The difference between the two of us is I don’t feel compelled to be analytical about what can’t be altered. He was constantly excavating his nature, his past, the forces that shaped him.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“The emotional distance was never worth the togetherness, and yet I didn’t learn. Nothing had changed.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“Huh. What I remember is he nearly killed you, Katie.” When she called me “Katie” I was ten years old again.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“It would take the removal of my frontal lobe.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence

“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.”
― Patricia Cornwell, Body of Evidence