Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by Richard North Patterson

The business of writing is empathising with situations that aren't your own.

The rulings of the past do not always apply in the present.

The writer must always leave room for the characters to grow and change. If you move your characters from plot point to plot point, like painting by the numbers, they often remain stick figures. They will never take on a life of their own. The most exciting thing is when you find a character doing something surprising or unplanned. Like a character saying to me: ‘Hey, Richard, you may think I work for you, but I don’t. I’m my own person.’

The manuscript you submit [should not] contain any flaws that you can identify - it is up to the writer to do the work, rather than counting on some stranger in Manhattan to do it for him.

Writing seems like the only job where what you think and feel really matters.

The only judgment that truly matters is the final judgment.

Problem was that we could make things worse but we couldn't make anything better.

Aggressiveness is good in a combat leader. Combining that with ambition and insecurity becomes more problematic.

Morally repugnant and tactically stupid are a lousy combination.

Write what you care about and understand. Writers should never try to outguess the marketplace in search of a salable idea; the simple truth is that all good books will eventually find a publisher if the writer tries hard enough, and a central secret to writing a good book is to write on that people like you will enjoy.

No one should be judged by the worst moment of his life.

Writing is akin to method acting. Before the writer can render a fully convincing world, he or she must inhabit that world, and every major character who lives there. I'm not suggesting that one always has to go this far. But I truly believe what makes the setting for my novels come alive is that I've lived there first.

Before Bin Laden did everything but advertise. Yet he had to blow up the Twin Towers just to get the attention of anyone outside the intelligence community. So what did we do? We invaded the wrong country, killed the wrong madman, and too often used the wrong interrogation techniques on the wrong people-all because our leaders lost contact with the truth.

I was 29 when I wrote my first novel. But I was 45 when I quit for good. I was a 16-year overnight success.

Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing.