Jonathan Kellerman > Quotes

“Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.”
― Jonathan Kellerman

“To trust someone is to take the greatest risk of all. (180)”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Blood Test

“If you ask me, psychopaths are more talented than the rest of us... but they're still fucking psychopaths.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Self-Defense

“Therapist’s dilemma: those who need help the most, run the farthest from it.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Time Bomb

“The science of psychotherapy is knowing what to say, the art is knowing when to say it. (36)”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Over the Edge

“Just because others have it worse doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Self-Defense

“All of us are like locks. No matter how strong the bolt, there’s always a key out there that opens it.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Self-Defense

“There were nights when I left the sessions physically and emotionally drained after hearing the anguish pour out like blood from a gaping wound. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different – psychotherapy is one of the most taxing endeavors known to mankind; I’ve done all sorts of work, from picking carrots in the scorching sun to sitting on national committees in paneled board rooms, and there’s nothing that compares to confronting human misery hour after hour and bearing the responsibility for easing that misery using only one’s mind and mouth. At its best it’s tremendously uplifting as you watch the patient open up, breathe, let go of the pain. At its worst is like surfing in a cesspool struggling for balance while being slapped with wave after putrid wave.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, When the Bough Breaks

“His experience and training should have taught him that families are the cauldrons in which violence is brewed. (144)”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Blood Test

“I saw this cartoon in the paper, once. That Viking, Hagar the Horrible? He’s standing on the mountaintop, holding his hands to the heavens, shouting “Why me?” And down from the heavens comes the answer: “Why not?” Maybe that’s the ultimate truth; what right to do I have to expect a smooth ride?”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Survival of the Fittest

“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.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Time Bomb

“Through the anger came something I recognized; the sadness that can result from too many years absorbing the poison of others. - Alex Delaware on Dr. Lehmann”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Survival of the Fittest

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

“Assholes are like weeds, a bitch to get rid of and when you do another one grows back in its place.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, When the Bough Breaks

“They say you don’t grow up until you lose your parents. Frankly, I’d prefer to be immature.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Victims

“The symptoms of madness can often be altered with medication, but there's no therapy for evil.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Over the Edge

“I'd been trained in the art of psychotherapy, the excavation of the past as a means of untangling the present and rendering it livable. It's detective work, of sorts, crouching stealthily in the blind alleys of the unconscious. (179)”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Blood Test

“Pessimism is not good for the soul."
"I sold my soul years ago."
"To whom?"
"The bitch goddess Success. She cut town before paying off.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, When the Bough Breaks

“Nice concept.
-What is?
-Retreating. Getting away from the grind.
-Oh, you never do. You just change gears.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Self-Defense

“It was shaping up as a beautiful morning. The last thing I wanted to hear about was murder.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, When the Bough Breaks

“The stress of grad school can drive anyone temporarily mad.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Devil's Waltz

“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.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Private Eyes

“Her basic disposition was a good deal sunnier than mine. But I was a better faker.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Rage

“Sleep. The ultimate resistance”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Self-Defense

“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)”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Blood Test

“Revenge was a dish best eaten cold, but eight years between was arctic.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Rage

“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.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Blood Test

“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.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Night Moves

“If dust was present, it was hiding in fear.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, Guilt

“In matters of healing, the body initiates and the mind follows.”
― Jonathan Kellerman, The Murderer's Daughter