Home > Work > Depraved Heart (Scarpetta, #23)
1 " For that matter I didn't understand Civil War reenactments. Why would you celebrate the biggest thing you ever lost? I quickly learned not to give voice to such skepticisms, and when asked if I was a Yankee I said I didn't follow baseball closely. That usually shut the person up. "
― Patricia Cornwell , Depraved Heart (Scarpetta, #23)
2 " . . . she was a tabula rasa when it came to appropriate behavior. To say Lucy was difficult is like saying lightening is hazardous. It's a statement of fact that will always be a given. "
3 " a force to reckon with. I’m sure of that. “The rear "
4 " Maybe nothing phased her until she was beaten to death on her marble floor, and I envision a blitz attack. "
5 " This day could be our last and if it’s in the cards then so be it. I’ll prevent any bad thing I can. That’s my life’s mission. I also know how to accept finality, to give myself up to what I can’t begin to change. I don’t want to die. But I refuse to fear it. I wait for it without dread because there’s no logic in living a tragedy before it’s happened. "
6 " about the timing. "
7 " But to whom much is given much also can be taken, "
8 " Disrespect is a symptom of weakness, of smallness, of an existential problem. By acting rude to me he’s showing me what he really thinks of himself. "
9 " Vulgarity is inversely proportionate to intelligence and facility with languages. Profuse swearing is generally associated with a low IQ, a limited vocabulary and uncontrollable hostility. "
10 " Technology made everything better for a while and now it seems life is circling back around to the dark ages. "
11 " When terrorists find something that works they keep on doing it. It’s predictable. "
12 " Tell me about data fiction.” “It’s what can happen if we’re so reliant on technology that we become completely dependent on things we can’t see. Therefore we can no longer judge for ourselves what’s true, what’s false, what’s accurate, what isn’t. In other words if reality is defined by software that does all the work for us then what if this software lies? What if everything we believe isn’t true but is a facade, a mirage? What if we go to war, pull the plug, make life-and-death decisions based on data fiction? "
13 " Digital communication has begun to make me feel I’m moving faster than ever even as I lose the trusted navigational equipment I was born with. My own eyes. My own ears. My own sense of touch. I miss paper and pen. I miss face-to-face conversations. I worry we’re on a collision course with doubt and delusion on a galactic scale. "
14 " clock has been synced with the others. “Was there any other indication that Chanel Gilbert worked in here? What else was on the desk?” I begin looking at the framed photographs of sea turtles, eagle "
15 " Lucy is the skeleton key to everything we do at the CFC. She’s the keeper of my electronic kingdom, and therefore potentially a portal for the Feds. They could attempt to use her to gain access to office e-mail accounts and case records that go back many decades, and next I start wondering why they might care. I wonder why the helicopter followed me here. Did it really? Or did it just seem like it? Is the FBI only after Lucy? Are they after her at all or is it me they want "
16 " If you’re never an original thinker how can you possibly get in trouble? If you’re banal and unoriginal enough you’ll get promoted.” We "
17 " His words and not-so-quiet whispers are around me like shards of glass that glint and cut. Fragments of thoughts. Ignorant banal ones. Hyde is the master of dumb nicknames and comes up with dreadful puns, and I remember what he said as recently as last month when a group of us met at the Cambridge watering hole Paddy’s to toast Pete Marino’s birthday. Hyde insisted on buying me a round, on treating me to a stiff drink, maybe a Bloody Mary or a Sudden Death or a Spontaneous Combustion "
18 " When terrorists find something that works they keep on doing it. It’s predictable "
19 " Marino routinely butchers clichés and thinks an idiom is a stupid person. "
20 " aborigine, angry, beautiful, fiery, fearless, remorseless and untouchable, overly "