Quotes from Jonathan Kellerman

Revenge was a dish best eaten cold, but eight years between was arctic.

A good chunk of my life had been spent sorting out the scrambled communications, festering hostilities, and frozen affections that characterized families in turmoil. (257)

The key to excellent report writing' he said between chews, 'is to take every bit of passion out of it. Use an extra heaping portion of superflously extraneous tautological redundancies in order to make it mind-numbingly boring. So that when one's superior officers read it, they zone out and start skimming and maybe don't notice the fact that one has been spinning one's wheels since the body turned up and hasn't solved a goddamn thing.

Sleep. The ultimate resistance

It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder.

I'd long thought that a surfeit of sensitivity could be a killing thing, too much insight malignant in its own right. The best survivors--there are studies that show it--are those blessed with an inordinate ability to deny. And keep on marching.

That's the way it is with most people: Details are an intrusion. Then there's the rest of us, lying in bed at three a.m., scrolling through volumes of mental small print.

Family. It's an incurable disease.

Maybe still waters did run deep. Or God on your side was the ultimate soul balm.

That has to remain the principal reason for doing it, doesn't it? I know it's possible to write for money, and many very good writers have done so. But for me, it has to remain the principal thing that I actually want to do the writing.

I don't practice, but I am still officially in paediatrics. I keep in touch with journals, and I have a very good data bank of medical information and there is a key thing for a writer knowing where to go. I know where to go to get the information that I need.

We tend to read each other's books in sizeable chunks as they are written. I don't know that you could say we are ruthless with each other - in fact, I suppose we are very kind. There are ways to make suggestions which are not destructive.

These people are real to me, and situations keep coming up where their emergence feels natural. It's like meeting old friends. I hope readers feel the same way.

That's what's so great about my job. I get paid to do what got me in trouble in grade school space out and play with my imaginary friends. In terms of Isaac, when the time's right.

Without sounding pompous, I really do feel that I have a set of standards that I must adhere to, even leaving aside considerations of what the readers expect.

Each novel is harder than its predecessor because I must work harder at not repeating myself. However, I enjoy the challenge. This is the greatest job in the world.

The key to this collaboration - which we undertook after much deliberation - was to stretch creatively. New characters, new locales, new form (the novella).

Time spent researching varies from book to book. Some novels require months, even years of research, others very little. I try to do most of my research before I begin but inevitably questions emerge during the writing.

His experience and training should have taught him that families are the cauldrons in which violence is brewed. (144)