The Sinner

Only the forgotten are truly dead.

Everything's a gamble, love most of all.

You don't have to die to go to hell.

The Christmas tree, twinkling with lights, had a mountain of gifts piled up beneath it, like offerings to the great god of excess.

You know that movie, where the little boy says 'I see dead people'? The Sixth Sense. Well, I see them all the time, and I'm getting tired of it. That's what's ruined my mood. Here it is, almost Christmas, and I didn't even think about putting up a tree, because I'm still seeing the autopsy lab in my head. I'm still smelling it on my hands. I come home on a day like this, after two postmortems, and I can't think about cooking dinner. I can't even look at a piece of meat without thinking of muscle fibers. All I can deal with is a cocktail. And then I pour the drink and smell the alcohol, and suddenly there I am, back in the lab. Alcohol, formalin, they both have that same sharp smell.

No man easily admits that he is afraid.

Death does not discriminate; whether saints or sinners, in the end, all are equal.

If you don't love him, if you don't even care about him, then seeing him now shouldn't be all that painful. Should it?

Does he think it's so easy? One smile, one touch and all is forgiven -Dr Maura Isles

But human anatomy and human endurance are variable. While the much younger nun had succumbed to her injuries, Ursula's heart kept beating, her body unwilling to surrender its soul. Not a miracle, merely one of those quirks of fate, like the child who survives a fall from a sixth-floor window, and is only scratched.

We're all struggling to stay upright, Maura thought. Resisting the pull of temptation,just as we fight the pull of gravity. And when we finally fall, it's always such a surprise.

Life is a series of complications. We have to deal with each one as it comes.

We’re all struggling to stay upright, Maura thought. Resisting the pull of temptation, just as we fight the pull of gravity. And when we finally fall, it’s always such a surprise. The