Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes

I think what's always been interesting to me than the science and the criminality with this job is what happens to your persona, your disposition, after day in and day out dealing with life and death.

Pain leaves a mark, the degree depending on the person and the event.

I'm pretty mad at horror films for ruining my childhood.

As crime writers, we put these characters, year after year, book after book, through the most horrendous trauma, dealing with grief and death and loss and violence. We can't pretend that these things don't affect these characters; they have to. If they don't, then you're essentially writing cartoons.

I saw a great many men die afterwards, some suffering horribly, but I do not recall any death that affected me quite so much as that of this first victim in my platoon.

All the violence in videos and movies, you can't tell me that that wouldn't influence a disturbed person.

The experience of testifying and the aftermath have changed my life.

Images of dead children are so excruciating that we are now well trained to short-circuit our emotional responses to move from horror to suspicion to indifference.

People always ask me, 'I don't know how you could watch that, how that affects you,' and I just tell them, 'I went through it in real life, so it's like pilots watching a 'Top Gun' movie or cyclists watching a bicycle movie,' something like that.

I don't want to sound like a whiner here, but if you get beat up all the time, it affects you.

The punches that don't knock you out are the ones you feel the most.

After a big defeat, any player feels affected - it is about how long he needs to recover.

If you talk to any cop, however hardened, and say, "Has anything that's ever bothered you", they'll tell you about the death of a child that they had to deal with.

My mother just wanted me to forget it. So, of course, every word was immediately, irrevocably branded into my brain.

Let everyone see the blood,' he said. 'Don't clean it up. That's the only way people remember.'... I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget.

I want to know why this is such a part of me. I want to know why this thing that happened to other people has happened so much to me. I keep looking for the lesson.

When I went to jail, reality hit so hard that it took my breath away, took my stance away, took my strength away. I was there buck naked, humiliated, sitting in my own crap and urine - this is a metaphor. My ego had run off. Your ego is the biggest coward.

Little losses amaze, great tame.

When people say of their tragedies, 'I don't often think of it now,' what they mean is it has entered permanently into their thoughts, and colors everything.

Fear cuts deeper than swords.

How has the human spirit ever survived the terrific literature with which it has had to contend?

Usually the bullies are the most insecure. I was bullied and it's hard, you feel like high schools never going to be over. Its four years of your life and you just have to remember the person picking on you has their own problems and their own issues. And you're going to be ok.

The void Papa's death left in me became a kind of cavity, into which later experiences were to be laid.

Guys respect other guys who get it done on the field, play through adversity, and come through when it matters most.

If anybody says they get used to it, you don't.