Top 90 Kathy Reichs Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Indecision is the key to flexibility.”

— Kathy Reichs

2. “Death in anonymity is the ultimate insult to human dignity.”

— Kathy Reichs

3. “I work with the dead, but I am working for the living.”

— Kathy Reichs

4. “Let’s do it. Monkeys are always funny. You pretty much can’t go wrong with a monkey, right? Hi paused. Well unless that monkey wants you dead, or does needle drugs or something. Then it’s wrong, and a bad monkey.”

— Kathy Reichs

5. “I adore storms. I love the raw power of the spectacle: Hydraulics! Voltage! Percussion! Mother Nature has dominion and everyone awaits her whim.”

— Kathy Reichs

6. “As a pirate, she once undressed a fencing instructor using only her sword!”

— Kathy Reichs

7. “If you want to be an anthropologist, you need to study physical anthropology specialized in bones. If you want to be a forensic chemist, get a degree in chemistry. Do you want to do DNA work? Get a degree in microbiology. And do well. Study hard and go to graduate school.”

— Kathy Reichs

8. “Experience is a valuable thing. It enables us to recognize mistakes when we repeat them.”

— Kathy Reichs

9. “The world is rife with evil and misfortune, but it is also full of good people determined to right wrongs. I would not sink into sadness. I would celebrate those who refuse to give up. Those who battle to make things better.”

— Kathy Reichs

10. “I have a rule that has served me well in life. When in doubt, do nothing. If you’re not sure, don’t buy it, don’t comment, don’t commit. Sit tight. Deviation from this maxim has usually caused me regret.”

— Kathy Reichs

11. “I was a university professor, I could talk on and on and on. Give me a podium and you have to drag me off with a hook.”

— Kathy Reichs

12. “Nutrition is the key to good health.” “Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which to die.”

— Kathy Reichs

13. “My line of work makes you aware of the fragility of life. You can get up in the morning, eat your cornflakes, blow-dry your hair, go to work and end up dead.”

— Kathy Reichs

14. “She wanted to feel safe. Untouchable in her home. The ultimate female fantasy.”

— Kathy Reichs

15. “A gunshot is the loudest sound in the universe. Especially if the bullet is coming at you.”

— Kathy Reichs

16. “The seven big dogs are Eleggua, Obatalla, Chango, Oshun, Yemaya, Babalu Aye, and Oggun. Each.”

— Kathy Reichs

17. “God help anyone who messes with the Virals!”

— Kathy Reichs

18. “Who’s going to rob us? A crackhead crab? A jellyfish junkie?”

— Kathy Reichs

19. “Violence wounds the body and it wounds the soul. Of the predator. Of the prey. Of the mourners. Of collective humanity. It diminishes us all.”

— Kathy Reichs

20. “High school popularity is so fickle.”

— Kathy Reichs

21. “People love to hate the gravedigger.”

— Kathy Reichs

22. “Good hair day. Bad hair day. Dead hair day.”

— Kathy Reichs

23. “You’ll start talking, and pretty soon we’ll all start nodding, and then the next thing you know, I’m hang gliding off the Eiffel Tower at night, being chased by ninja vampires.”

— Kathy Reichs

24. “I have a rule that has served me well in life. When in doubt, do nothing. If you’re not sure, don’t buy it, don’t comment, don’t commit.”

— Kathy Reichs

25. “Today he wore a burnt-orange shirt, black pants, and a tie that looked like a street fight at the south end of the color wheel.”

— Kathy Reichs

26. “I chuckled at this passage from Dr. Tempe Brennan in “Bones Never Lie” by Kathy Reichs: “Back home, I ate Bojangles chicken with Bird and watched a rerun of ‘Bones.’ For some reason, the cat is nuts about Hodgins.”

— Kathy Reichs

27. “Everyone’s gone mad, typing to themselves all day long like mindless robots.”

— Kathy Reichs

28. “I have come to think of violence as a self-perpetuating mania of the power of the aggressive over those less strong.”

— Kathy Reichs

29. “What gives my books authenticity is that I actually do what it is I’m writing about. I think the fact that I am in the autopsy room, I go to the crime scene and I do work in the lab gives my books this flavor that otherwise they wouldn’t have.”

— Kathy Reichs

30. “Though a good cop, Luc Claudel has the patience of a firecracker, the sensitivity of Vlad the Impaler, and a persistent skepticism as to the value of forensic anthropology. Snappy dresser, though.”

— Kathy Reichs

31. “Why do all your brilliant ideas involve felonies?”

— Kathy Reichs

32. “Edmonton is Canada’s answer to Omaha. Solid, unassuming, and surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. It’s a place that makes you think of sensible shoes.”

— Kathy Reichs

33. “From time to time the human species spawns predators that feed on those around them. They’re not the species. They’re mutations of the species. In my opinion these freaks have no right to suck oxygen from the atmosphere. But they’re here, so I help cage them up and put them where they can’t hurt others. I make life safer for the folks who get up, go to work each day, raise their kids or their tomatoes, or their tropical fish, and watch the ball game in the evening. They are the human species.”

— Kathy Reichs

34. “Chance wore a white tuxedo with tails. On anyone else? Doopy. On him? Yes, please.”

— Kathy Reichs

35. “Ben locked his eyes on mine for a long moment. Then, “How?” “How do you think?” I smiled, then slapped him full across the face.”

— Kathy Reichs

36. “In greeting, we Southerners say “hey” not “hi.” To alert, draw the attention of, or show objection to another, we also say “hey,” but air is expelled and the ending is truncated. This.”

— Kathy Reichs

37. “Okay. Computer and.”

— Kathy Reichs

38. “It takes analytical skills worthy of a degree in civil engineering to understand when and where one is allowed to leave a car in Montreal.”

— Kathy Reichs

39. “I have a cotillion event. Some yacht-club charity fundraiser thingy. Whitney is insisting, and Kit took her side.” Three wide smiles. “Oh shut up.”

— Kathy Reichs

40. “Hi shook his head. “The guy’s not a rocket scientist. Or a rock scientist. He’s dumb, is what I’m saying.”

— Kathy Reichs

41. “Even in shabbiness there was room for pride.”

— Kathy Reichs

42. “He left as silently as he’d come. Pierre LaManche favored crepe-soled shoes, kept his pockets empty so nothing jangled or swished. Like a croc in a river he arrived and departed unannounced by auditory cues. Some of the staff found it unnerving.”

— Kathy Reichs

43. “Tory a father isn’t supposed to fear his fourteen-year-old daughter. That being sad, you terrify me.”

— Kathy Reichs

44. “One of the surprising things I hadn’t expected when I decided to write crime fiction is how much you are expected to be out in front of the public. Some writers aren’t comfortable with that. I don’t have a problem with that.”

— Kathy Reichs

45. “I’ve never lost my capacity to be shocked.”

— Kathy Reichs

46. “Won’t you take me to Monkey-Town?”

— Kathy Reichs

47. “I hated myself for needing him at such times, for craving his strength whenever I felt upset.”

— Kathy Reichs

48. “Ryan drew in a deep breath. Let it out. Then he made a comment that melted my resentment. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But at times you go with your heart, not your head. I worry that one day you will pay a price. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.”

— Kathy Reichs

49. “He is wolf... pack can change. Wolf is wolf.”

— Kathy Reichs

50. “I’m not writing great literature. I’m writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.”

— Kathy Reichs