Top 146 Quotes & Sayings by John Grisham - Page 2

We have the crime of the century every six months. So for people like me who enjoy, you know, taking these stories and writing about them, the material is endless.

After I'd been a lawyer for about five or six years, I started playing around with fiction.

I'm not good at raising money. I don't like to raise money. It's been my experience that when I ask someone for money, it's not long before they return the favor.

I can't change overnight into a serious literary author. You can't compare apples to oranges. William Faulkner was a great literary genius. I am not.

It's a game. We tax lawyers teach the rich how to play it so they can stay rich-and the IRS keeps changing the rules so we can keep getting rich teaching them.

How could homosexuals possibly srew up the sanctity of marriage any worse than heterosexuals?

I've written 17 novels, and I've found out that fiction can't keep up with real life.

I guess under the right circumstances, a man will do just about anything.

Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.

Reading is by far the most successful pursuit of happiness.

In my case, once you sell a lot of books and you are labeled a bestselling author, the serious critics are never gonna say anything nice about you.

Stephen King reached out to me twenty-five years ago and taught me some valuable lessons. In return, I've tried to be generous with my time over the years with young writers. I've given them my email and said if you need someone to talk to, I've been through it.

We learned after the first semester in law school that it's best never to discuss exams. If notes are compared afterwards, you become painfully aware of things you missed.

Stephen King told me a long time ago, when he gave me some advice about the movies. He said to take the money up front and expect it to be something different than the book and if you don't like that don't deal with Hollywood. But if you take the money, shut up and don't criticize the film because you sold it. The movie doesn't change a word of the book.

I don't even know what a serious literary critic is.

If you're gonna be stupid you gotta be tough.

I don't feel stupid, just inadequate. After three years of studying the law, I'm very much aware of how little I know.

I did get tired of hearing that criticism years ago. That is not a compliment. Being labeled a "beach read" is a put-down. So, I did deliberately set out to write a book, Camino Island, that would be very entertaining and compulsively readable and we published it on June 6 in time for summer vacation, hoping that people would buy it and take it to the beach.

I'm being followed so much I'm causing traffic jams.

Life is short..Live to the fullest.

In one long glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God.

I didn't dare think of the future; the past was still happening.

An outline is crucial. It saves so much time. When you write suspense, you have to know where you're going because you have to drop little hints along the way. With the outline, I always know where the story is going. So before I ever write, I prepare an outline of 40 or 50 pages.

I grew up in a very small, close-knit, Southern Baptist family, where everything was off-limits. So I couldn't wait to get to college and have some fun. And I did for the first two years. And I regret a lot of it, because my grades were in terrible shape.

Live your life the way you want. You'll figure it out.

Privileged people don't march and protest; their world is safe and clean and governed by laws designed to keep them happy.

Some people have more guts than brains.

You live your life today, Not tommorow, and certainly not yesterday.

There are few writers who, if they publish anything, I am going to buy it: Ian McEwan, Scott Turow, Pat Conroy - he was a buddy of mine and I always read his stuff. Also: Harlan Coben, Elmore Leonard, John Le Carre, but he's pushing ninety.

My mum was never too keen on TV, so we kids all went to the library and got books out. Right from the start, I loved the works of Mark Twain. Every time I read about Tom Sawyer, I'd go out and do something low-level naughty, just like him.

I'm alone and outgunned, scared and inexperienced, but I'm right.

The first thing my family did when we moved was join the local church. The second was to go to the library and get library cards.

Very few writers understand the complex history and maddening social order of the Mississippi Delta. For Steve Yarbrough, though, it's home turf. He is wickedly observant, funny, cynical, evocative, and he possesses a gift that cannot be taught: he can tell a story.

You burn a man's pickup, and he's ready for war.

Once again, I was reminded that Tally was the prettiest girl I'd ever met, and when she smiled at me my mind went blank. Once you've seen a pretty girl naked, you feel a certain attachment to her.

It's as if we spend our entire lives avoiding Jell-O but it is always there at the end, waiting.

I stopped reading William Faulkner because it's hard work. I want to read a good writer, but I also want to read something where the pages are going to move along. That's what I want. It doesn't have to be a thriller or a mystery. Just something where I get caught up in the story.

I looked at her and tried to speak, but all I could think about was how shocked she'd be if I said what I was thinking.

There are few things in life worse than a long-winded lawyer.

The company later went broke, and of course all blame was directed at the lawyers. Not once did I hear any talk that maybe a trace of mismanagement could in any way have contributed to the bankruptcy.

Please give me fifty more years of work and fun, then an instant death when I'm sleeping.

A riveting, exciting and thoroughly compelling tale of adventure.

I struggle with racism every day

Jesus preached more and taught more about helping the poor and the sick and the hungry than he did about heaven and hell. Shouldn't that tell us something?

It's amazing how lies grow. You start with a small one that seems easy to cover, then you get boxed in and tell another one. Then another. People believe you at first, then they act upon your lies, and you catch yourself wishing you'd simply told the truth.

When witnesses concoct lies, they often miss the obvious.

The two mistakes that come to mind are people who introduce a flood of characters in the first few pages. Where the reader has to stop and get out a flow chart and has to figure out who is who. And you just can't do that - introduce the first four generations of a character's family in the first chapter. You can introduce four or five characters at the most in the first chapter. Another mistake is to use big words that are not normally used in conversation to try to impress folks with your vocabulary.

I learned that lesson a long time ago. When you write popular fiction, you're going to get bashed by critics.

There is no devious and dangerous life. I've lived a charmed life, especially in the last thirty years since I've started publishing. I've won the lottery. And I keep winning it every year and I am so fortunate to do something I thoroughly enjoy and still enjoy after a bunch of books.

Critics should find meaningful work.

Ten years from now I plan to be sitting here, looking out over my land. I hope I'll be writing books, but if not, I'll be on my pond fishing with my kids. I feel like the luckiest guy I know.

I still enjoy the process of writing. If I ever feel like I am going through the motions because I can sell anything at this level, I hope that somebody, somewhere who I trust will tell me to take a break and stop because it's sounding old. But so far, I don't feel like I'm boring anyone.

judge not that ye be not judged

I've sold too many books to get good reviews anymore. There's a lot of jealousy, because [reviewers] think they can write a good novel or a best-seller and get frustrated when they can't. I've learned to despise them.

You need some coffee, don't you?" "Yes, I've only had a gallon.

In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. Each of you is an original. Each of you has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be heard.

Shame was an emotion he had abandoned years earlier. Addicts know no shame. You disgrace yourself so many times you become immune to it.

My decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession.

I don't start a novel until I have lived with the story for awhile to the point of actually writing an outline and after a number of books I've learned that the more time I spend on the outline the easier the book is to write. And if I cheat on the outline I get in trouble with the book.

Prisons are hate factories, Pastor, and society wants more and more of them.