The Skin Collector Quotes

"Pseudo-designer heels and hundred-year-old architecture can be a dangerous combination."

"His calm eyes looked her over – but not her breasts or lips or hips or legs. Just the skin of her bare arms, her throat, her neck."

"In the discipline of forensic science an investigator looks at death abstractly, considers it to be merely an event that gives rise to a series of tasks."

"You always put everything you could into your mods."

"But what she’d been expecting, dreading, wasn’t happening. In a way, though, this was worse."

"Views of Death Number One and Number Two were not, of course, mutually exclusive."

"He’d found out about the volume weeks ago and knew he needed a copy to complete his planning for the Modification."

"But now he wasn’t thinking so much of the terrible news, wasn’t thinking of the unfairness of what had happened, though what had happened was unfair."

"Sometimes a couple’d come in and they’d want to ink wedding vows on their arms or ankles. Or crappy love poems they’d written, like I mentioned. I’d say, okay, dudes, you sure you want to go through life with "Jimmy I love you you’re heart and mine for ever" on your biceps. That’s Jimmy no comma, you no period or semicolon, Y-O-U apostrophe R-E, and for ever two words. They’d say, "Huh." I’d edit anyway when I inked them. They’ll have kids and have to go to a PTA meeting, meet the English teacher. After all, not like you can use White-Out, right?"

"We’re not getting married. Just, it’s time for this to happen. I feel it. He feels it. It’s just right. We’re like totally compatible."

"You get inked to make a positive statement about yourself. Not for revenge, not to shove it in somebody’s face. Not because you want to be that stupid girl with a dragon tattoo. Ink’s about who you are, not being anybody else."

"We’ll talk about what to wear, how to act, who to be, later."

"Tats connect people. That’s one of the whole points of getting inked. Even if you’ve got unique works, you’re still part of the ink world. You got something in common, you know. That connects you, see, dude?"

"My impression was that he was fascinated with her skin. He wanted to touch it. Or was driven to maybe."

"You were right, Sachs. They look cut, not tattooed. Like he used a razor blade or scalpel."

"There’s nothing wrong with me! I’m just concerned about you."

"And good job knowing the distinction. Now, that last bit of evidence. That’s the one I’m most interested in."

"It wasn’t common for a perp to return to the scene of the crime – that was a cliché helpful only in bad murder mysteries and made-for-TV movies – but it did happen sometimes."

"Particularly perps who weren’t professional criminals but psychopaths, whose motives for murder were rooted in mental or emotional disturbance, which pretty much described Unsub 11-5."

"And nobody’s washing their clothes. Afraid of the laundry room."

"The unsub, or whoever he was, had disappeared around the corner of a glass-and-chrome building."

"‘Why’s he coming back?’ Rhyme mused. Not expecting an answer."

"It’s as mysterious as the message he’s trying to send."

"The sentences ran into each other, clattering, like cars on a fast-braking freight train."

"‘What the hell is he saying?’ Rhyme shook his head."

"‘The medics, coupla detectives from the Eight Four.’ He shook his head. ‘They’re doing the best they can. But.’"

"The sight of death or gore didn’t bother her; you don’t sign on to crime scene work if that troubles you."

"He’s not convulsing and there are no gastrointestinal reactions and his vitals are stable so I’d guess it’s not a toxin."

"She also had a rep, as in reputation, as in gold."

"The first killer was obsessed with bones; our unsub’s obsessed with skin."

"This plant is a nondescript, workaday herb that is hardly an aesthetic contribution to any garden."

"The pain was terrible! I think he broke a tooth, his jaw was pressed so tight together."

"In fact, throughout history, for every intentional victim of arsenic poisoning – like Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany – there were many more accidental victims."

"The criminalist and Mel Cooper were in the front hallway of the town house, the door open."

"I’ll miss him too. He was an … interesting man."

"You have to spend money to make money."

"The most dangerous things are the ones you can't see."

"Body markings're windows, you know. Into who you are and what you're feeling."

"The only thing we need at this point is the ID of your colleague. The one with the poison."

"You know, we were talking about Amelia. I was just thinking. Maybe I will apologize."

"Do not speak to me that way. Do you understand?"

"We've been planning the attack for at least that long. And I've been planning to get you back into my life forever. My Lovely Girl."

"Striking like a snake, he jabbed his fist into her cheek, bone to bone."

"You were my Lovely Girl. You’d grow up to be my woman and the mother of our children."

"I won’t warn you again. I’m your man and I’m in charge. Understand?"

"What delightful toxin had he picked for her?"

"She forced the crying to stop. This was easier than she’d thought. Anger froze the tears."

"He was fascinated only with her flesh itself."

"The Rule of Skin … It’s brilliant. Think about it: Skin tells us about our physical health, right? And it tells us our spiritual development too."