Quotes from The Surgeon

Tess Gerritsen ·  416 pages

Rating: (106.3K votes)


“Evil doesn't die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we've been touched by it once, it doesn't mean we're immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“Where we go depends on what we know, and what we know depends on where we go.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“The most intimate feeling people can share is neither love nor hate, but pain.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“She now knew her death was inevitable, and with that acceptance came liberation. The courage of the condemned.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“What Rizzoli thought, staring at her own image, was that she hated Elizabeth Hurley for giving women false hope. The brutal truth was, there are some women who will never be beautiful, and Rizzoli was one of them.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon



“We never know until the beast of opportunity is staring us in the face.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“No matter how much you try to maintain order in your life, no matter how careful you are to guard against mistakes, against imperfections, there is always some smudge, some flaw, lurking out of sight. Waiting to surprise you.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“She was the only woman in the homicide unit, and already there had been problems between her and another detective, charges of sexual harassment, countercharges of unrelenting bitchiness.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“That is exactly what I learned. That evil can be so ordinary.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“Had she always been so insulated from human contact, like a bloom encased in frost?”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon



“And like a drowning woman who chooses the black sea instead of rescue, she did not take it.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“I’m a dinosaur, he thought, lumbering through a world where truthtellers
are despised.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“There's nothing as boring as perfection”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“This unsub is a classic picquerist. Someone who uses a knife to achieve secondary or indirect sexual release. Picquerism is the act of stabbing or cutting, any repeated penetration of the skin with a sharp object. The knife is a phallic symbol--a substitution for the male sexual organ. Instead of performing normal sexual intercourse, our unsub achieves his release by subjecting his victim to pain and terror. It's the power that thrills him. Ultimate power, over life and death.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“Gradually the beep of the EKG slowed. Against the steady rhythm of that heartbeat, the two women gazed at each other. If Catherine had recognized a part of herself in Nina’s eyes, so, too, did Nina seem to recognize herself in Catherine’s. The silent sisterhood of victims. There are more of us than anyone will ever know.  ”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon



“No kiss, no embrace, could bring two people any closer than we are right now. The most intimate emotion two people can share is neither love nor desire but pain.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“fierce-looking, a coal-eyed brunette with a gaze direct as lasers. She”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“Catgut is a type of surgical thread made from the intestines of cows or sheep.” “So why do they call it catgut?” asked Rizzoli. “It goes back to the Middle Ages, when gut strings were used on musical instruments. The musicians referred to their instruments as their kit, and the strings were called kitgut. The word eventually became catgut.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


“It is cold in my cell. Outside, the harsh winds of February are blowing and I am told it has once again begun to snow. I sit on my cot, a blanket draped over my shoulders, and remember how the delicious heat had enveloped us like a cloak on the day we walked the streets of Livadia. To the north of that Greek town, there are two springs which were known in ancient times as Lethe and Mnemosyne. Forgetfulness and Memory. We drank from both springs, you and I, and then we fell asleep in the dappled shade of an olive grove.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Surgeon


About the author

Tess Gerritsen
Born place: in The United States
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