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" The hunting of monsters is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for those who feel bound by such trivial doctrines as law or national borders. "
Tess Gerritsen
Hunting
Heart
Feel
Related Quotes:
" The hardest part of writing is the first draft, and the closer you get to your deadline, the messier your workspace becomes - but that's the same with any creative outlet. "
Tess Gerritsen
Writing
You
Creative
" My brother often complains to me about the 'angry Asian male' in the United States. As a female, I haven't encountered this, but Asian-American men are angry. They're angry because, for so many years, they've been neglected as sex symbols. Asian women have it much easier, I think; we're accepted into various circles. "
Tess Gerritsen
Brother
Me
Women
" I'm Asian-American, and I was the only Chinese girl growing up in a white school in San Diego. So I understood what it was like to be different, to always want to fit in and never feel like you ever could. "
Tess Gerritsen
School
Growing Up
Be Different
" 'Ice Cold' is the eighth in my 'Rizzoli and Isles' thriller series. It was inspired by a true occurrence in the 1960s, now known as the 'Dugway Incident,' in which 6,000 sheep mysteriously died overnight in a remote area of Utah. I thought, 'What if it happened instead to people? What if the inhabitants of an entire village vanished overnight?' "
Tess Gerritsen
True
Village
People
" Only with maturity did I come to appreciate my own Chinese roots: not just the food and the ancient history, but also the philosophy of child-rearing and the respect for education and knowledge. "
Tess Gerritsen
Respect
Knowledge
Education
" Since my romance novels had all been thrillers as well, it wasn't such a leap for me to move into the straight thriller genre. The most difficult part, I think, was being accepted as a thriller writer. Once you've written romance, unfortunately, critics will never stop calling you a 'former romance author.' "
Tess Gerritsen
You
Leap
Me
" 'Lonesome Dove' by Larry McMurtry and 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver have stuck with me throughout my life, and I think that says a lot about an author's writing. "
Tess Gerritsen
Bible
Writing
Think
" I'm trained in science, believe in logic, and like to think there's an explanation for everything. And I'm truly not really at ease with other people. "
Tess Gerritsen
Science
Believe
Logic
" One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was the globe that I now keep right beside my desk. "
Tess Gerritsen
Got
Desk
Christmas
" I spent my childhood watching every scary movie that Hollywood ever made. And I think that gave me the best education for storytelling. It also made me want to reproduce the scary moments that I felt, sitting in a theater at the age of 5. "
Tess Gerritsen
Education
Think
Age
" In 'Last to Die,' three children living in different cities are the only survivors when their families are slaughtered. Two years later, their foster families are murdered, and these three orphans are once again the only survivors. "
Tess Gerritsen
Last
Two
Children
" I was a writer first, and knew I'd be a storyteller at age seven. But since my parents are very practical, they urged me to go into a profession that would be far more secure, so I went to medical school. "
Tess Gerritsen
School
Me
Age
" I always write on unlined typing paper and write the first draft in longhand, using cheap Bic pens. I try to write about four pages a day, which usually yields a first draft in six months. I don't plot ahead of time, so I'm flying by the seat of my pants for the first draft. "
Tess Gerritsen
Flying
Try
Time
" I think of all media, television is the most powerful when it comes to selling books, because when you have a feature film, yeah, there's a rush. But then after that month is over and the movie goes out of release, that's it. "
Tess Gerritsen
Powerful
You
Think
" Writing is very much an emotional process; it requires you to be very in touch with your feelings. That is the opposite of what you're taught as a medical doctor. We're supposed to be detached and logical. Maybe because I started off as a writer and then became a doctor, I'm able to integrate those two. "
Tess Gerritsen
You
Medical
Doctor
" Fans are always asking me where I get my ideas from. The answer is that I'm very curious, and I get inspiration from everywhere. I read the newspapers voraciously, so I know what's going on in real crime. I pay attention to the strange stories people tell me, and I also read a lot of scientific and forensic journals. "
Tess Gerritsen
Me
Curious
Crime
" I was always meant to be a writer. I've felt that way since I was a child. "
Tess Gerritsen
Meant To Be
Always
Child
" Mom and I often talked about the trip we'd someday take together to the 'city of eternal spring' where she was born. In Kunming, she said, the fruits are sweeter, the mountains look like Chinese paintings, and the weather is always perfect. "
Tess Gerritsen
Together
City
Mom
" My dad's cooking was magic in the kitchen. But eventually over the years, his personality changed and his ability to remember recipes failed. He became paranoid and thought people were stealing from him, when often he was just misplacing things. "
Tess Gerritsen
People
Thought
Personality
" I think that, for physicians who want to become writers, they have the material, the smarts, they have the logic, they know the stories; it's just a matter of being able to connect with their emotional sides - that's the key to writing good fiction. "
Tess Gerritsen
Know
Good
Key
" Because my dad's Chinese-American, and they're very concrete, he said, 'There's no money to be made in literature.' So he told me to go into the sciences. And I was a good girl. And I did what Daddy said. And that's how I ended up being a doctor. But you know, you just can't stamp out that desire to tell stories. "
Tess Gerritsen
Doctor
Money
Me
" Throughout most of my life, I've tried to downplay my Chinese heritage because I wanted so much to be an American. I was the only Asian kid in my elementary school, and I longed to be like everyone else. I insisted on American food; I was embarrassed by my mother's poor English. "
Tess Gerritsen
My Life
Mother
Food
" My mother is an immigrant from China, and she filled my head with stories about ghosts and fighting monks in China, so the world of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' was a very familiar one. "
Tess Gerritsen
Fighting
Mother
She
" I'd been writing stories since I was a child. I wrote little books for my mom and bound them myself with needle and thread. Mostly, they were about my pets. "
Tess Gerritsen
Child
Writing
Myself
" I have minor characters who are Asian-American, and I've been using them throughout my career, but they've never taken center stage, they've never been really powerful, they've never expressed some of the experiences I had growing up in the U.S. Johnny Tam is the first one. "
Tess Gerritsen
Growing
Career
Growing Up
" There is no better test of character than when you're tossed into crisis. That's when we see one's true colors shine through. So I try my best to make my characters personally involved in the plot, in a way that stresses them and tests them. "
Tess Gerritsen
Colors
Shine
Best
" My father said writing was a nice hobby. He strongly encouraged my brother and me to become doctors. "
Tess Gerritsen
Said
Brother
Writing
" 'I am a bad mother.' Every Christmas, this is what I think because the holiday season fills me with such anxiety. I'm sure that other mothers are happily baking cookies, decorating trees, and finding perfect gifts for everyone. "
Tess Gerritsen
Anxiety
Trees
I Am
" My most successful books, the ones that I feel the strongest about, are the ones that started with a premise that for me was deeply emotional. "
Tess Gerritsen
Successful
Started
Me
" I think of myself as a fairly logical, scientific and somewhat reserved person. Maura Isles, the Boston medical examiner who appears in five of my books, is me. Almost everything I use in describing her, from her taste in wine to her biographical data, is taken from my own family. Except I don't have a serial killer as a mother! "
Tess Gerritsen
Medical
Mother
Myself