Jonathan Kellerman quotes:

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.

-a Jew had to have two synagogues. One that he went to, one that he rejected.The Butcher's Theater

40 Words for Sorrow is brilliant-one of the finest crime novels I've ever read. Giles Blunt writes with uncommon grace, style and compassion and he plots like a demon. This book has it all-unforgettable characters, beautiful language, throat-constricting suspense.

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.

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 characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up.

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.

To trust someone is to take the greatest risk of all. (180)

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.

It didn't feel difficult at the time because I was so charged up about both books. Afterward, however, I was pretty tired. In a good way, like after a great workout.

Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.

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

Optimism is denial for chumps with no life experience". "What's pessimism?" I said. "Religion without God.

Therapist's dilemma: those who need help the most, run the farthest from it.

Just because others have it worse doesn't mean you have to suffer in silence.

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.

The stress of grad school can drive anyone temporarily mad.

I would never have been a novelist without working as a psychologist...it was a great education in human nature.

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.

The science of psychotherapy is knowing what to say, the art is knowing when to say it. (36)

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

All of us are like locks. No matter how strong the bolt, there's always a key out there that opens it.

I spent the first few years of my life in a smallish community in Queens. Back in those early days, kids could roam the streets with relatively little supervision and one place I visited frequently was the local library. This particular branch was little more than a storefront but to me it was an alternative universe where I could explore my interests and receive kind, informative answers to my questions from the wonderful librarians.

Whatever fame a novelist my attain, it's always kind of an anonymous one. I can go anywhere, and no one knows who I am....

At first, when a child meets something that scares him, the fear grows, like a wave. But when he goes into the water and swims - gets used to the water - the wave grows small. If we pull the child away when the wave is high, he never sees that, never learns how to swim and remains afraid. If he gets a chance to feel strong, in control, that's called coping. When he copes, he feels better.

Government is like junior high. Your status depends upon whom you're able to persecute.