Ronald Kessler Quotes

A working detective has no hope of understanding what even experts who devote their lives to the study of criminal psychology can't figure out.

When 'The Washington Post' ran the first national story about FBI profiling in 1984, no one outside of law enforcement recognized the term.

When I interviewed profilers in 1984 in the basement of the FBI Academy at Quantico, VA., there were just four of them - Roger Depue, John Douglas, Roy Hazelwood, and Robert Ressler.

I thought that the behavioral and some of the profiling stuff was interesting. The thing that I was most interested in, and the thing that we were really adament about, was let's get these guys who were there on tape, or in some kind of way, telling what happened. No one has really talked to them all.

I read a lot of books about psychopaths. I read a wonderful book Amy Hempel gave me about the guy who created criminal profiling - a fascinating book, 'Mind Hunter.'

'Criminal Minds' consists of stories told within the framework of the FBI behavioral science unit. It's about serial profiling.

I love the idea of getting into the mind of the criminal.

The best crime novels are not about how a detective works on a case; they are about how a case works on a detective.

While there are many wonderful police investigators out there doing some very fine work, the majority of the time it is not brains that catches serial killers.

At one point, I actually, ironically, thought I might go into criminology and work with the FBI.

The FBI Academy teaches new agents that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.

Some of the best movies made about crime are those where the crime solver can get inside the head of the serial killer, and those are the techniques we use in C.S.I.

Cops and robbers resemble each other, so there's not a lot to learn in terms of learning the logistics of committing the crime or investigating the crime.

In 'Leverage,' I don't really play an insurance investigator but a man who used to be an insurance investigator.

Profiling is a means for telling whom you have to worry about.

We can't get at crime unless we know what language it speaks. Otherwise, we are just suppressing the cough, not curing the disease.

I think there are lots of those moments when we meet people - listeners at a meet-and-greet - and they tell us that they've changed their major to forensic science, or criminal justice, or they've become a victim's advocate.

Like so many other bored teens, I was a bored teen with a hobby. The only difference was mine was obsessing about crime.

My novels are never directly based on a true crime incident, but I want to get the details right. I want to know how homicide detectives think, what a SWAT team might do to prepare.

Sometimes I'm like, Wow, 'Criminal Minds' is deep.

If I were a serial killer, I would not be the kind that stabs and then eats the victim. I would be the kind that hides in a tree and shoots at the aerobics class.

The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when [Holmes] became a specialist in crime.

A white male child of perfect innocence and intelligence makes the most suitable victim.

I need not pause to explain that crime is not a disease. It is criminology that is a disease.