Patricia Cornwell

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.

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

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

Everyone is doing forensics.

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

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

My friends call me Miss Worst Case Scenario.

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

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

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

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

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

I refuse to sit on my laurels.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge.

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

The human capacity to be curious has always existed.

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

First of all, it does not deter crime, the death penalty.

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.