John Grisham Quotes

I'm a Christian, and those beliefs occasionally come out in the books. ~ John Grisham

It wouldn't pay to get fresh with a missionary. ~ John Grisham

This summer, I'll be bringing out a mystery that involves a young lawyer and a court scene the likes of which I don't think you've ever seen. Hollywood said this is James Patterson meets John Grisham. ~ James Patterson

Do you read them? Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald?"
"Only if I have to. I try to avoid old dead white men. ~ John Grisham

Of course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn't enough to make him great. If it were, Judith Krantz and John Grisham would be great fiction writers, and by any but the most commercial standards they're not even very good. ~ David Foster Wallace

I can feel the competition here, very much like the first few weeks of law school when we were terribly concerned with each other's initial progress. I nod at a few acquaintances, silently hoping they flunk the exam because they're silently hoping I Collapse too. Such is the nature of the profession. ~ John Grisham

I'm being followed so much I'm causing traffic jams. ~ John Grisham

haven't seen them in some time. I ~ John Grisham

I cannot write as well as some people; my talent is in coming up with good stories about lawyers.That is what I am good at. ~ John Grisham

I earned my first steady paycheck watering rose bushes at a nursery for a dollar an hour. ~ John Grisham

You mentioned law school, he said, and this grabbed her attention. They talked about it at length, with Jake careful not to make his description as dreadful as the three-year ordeal itself. Occasionally, like all lawyers, Jake was asked by students if he would recommend the law as a profession. He had never found an honest way to say no, though he had many reservations. ~ John Grisham

F. Franklin the Fourth has a job with a firm rich in heritage, money and pretentiousness, a firm vastly superior to Brodnax and Speer. His sidekicks at the moment are W. Harper Whittenson, an arrogant little snot who will, thankfully, leave Memphis and practice with a mega-firm in Dallas; J. Townsend Gross, who has accepted a position with another huge firm; and James Straybeck, a sometimes friendly sort who's suffered three years of law school without an initial to place before his name or numerals to stick after it. With such a short name, his future as a big-firm lawyer is in jeopardy. I doubt if he'll make it. ~ John Grisham

I'm not itching to sue Amazon or Wal-Mart ... they sell a lot of books. But the future is very uncertain with books. ~ John Grisham

There are few things I like better in life than getting lost in a good book. ~ John Grisham

There was something unfair about a system in which a little kid was brought into a courtroom and surrounded by lawyers arguing and sniping at each other under the scornful eye of a judge, the referee, and somehow in the midst of this barrage of laws and code sections and motions and legal talk the kid was supposed to know what was happening to him. It was hopelessly unfair. ~ John Grisham

We cuss them because we're not good enough for them. We hate them because they wouldn't look at us, couldn't be bothered to give us an interview. I guess there's a Trent & Brent in every city, in every field. I didn't make it and I don't belong, so I'll just go through life hating them. ~ John Grisham

and exactly twenty-one feet from the ground. From there it fell about nine feet, culminating in a perfect hangman's knot, one that Seth had undoubtedly worked on for some time. The noose was straight from the textbook with thirteen ~ John Grisham

Ricky had taught me a few cuss words. I usually practiced them in the woods by the river, then prayed for forgiveness as soon as I was done. ~ John Grisham

You live your life today,
Not tomorrow,
and certainly not yesterday. ~ John Grisham

Look at me," he said, glancing
down at his legs. "A wretched old man in a red monkey suit. A convicted murderer about
to be gassed like an animal. And look at you. A fine young man with a beautiful
education and a bright future. Where in the world did I go wrong? What happened to me?
I've spent my
life hating people, and look what I have to show for it. You, you don't hate anybody. And
look where you're headed. We have the same blood. Why am I here? ~ John Grisham

The sixth and last eulogy was from Roderick, Hugo and Verna's oldest child. He wrote a three-page tribute to his father, and it was read by the reverend. Even Michael Geismar, a cold-blooded Presbyterian, finally succumbed to his emotions. The ~ John Grisham

O. J. Simpson theory of legal fees: I'm not paying you; you're lucky to be here; go make a buck with your book. ~ John Grisham

I wished i were seven feet tall. I'd hop up there and attack ol' Samson while the crowd went wild. I'd whip him good, send him flying, and become the biggest hero in Black Oak. But, for now, I could only boo him. ~ John Grisham

Since most law-abiding citizens had no contact with the parole system, it was not a priority with the state legislatures. And since most of the state's prisoners were either poor or black, and unable to use the system to their advantage, it was easy to hit them with harsh sentences and keep them locked up. But for an inmate with a few connections and some cash, the parole system was a marvelous labyrinth of contradictory laws that allowed the Parole Board to pass out favors. ~ John Grisham

Writing was not a childhood dream of mine. I do not recall longing to write as a student. I wasn't sure how to start. ~ John Grisham

Dear Mrs. Black: On seven prior occasions this company has denied your claim in writing. We now deny it for the eighth and final time. You must be stupid, stupid stupid, stupid! ~ John Grisham

But such a cheap shot from a sibling can never be left alone. ~ John Grisham

Never trust a white person black people don't like. ~ John Grisham

Quite often I can be in a bookshop, standing beneath a great big picture of myself and paying for a book with a credit card clearly marked John Grisham, yet no one recognises me. I often say I'm a famous author in a country where no one reads. ~ John Grisham

He hadn't hit her in several years, but when you've been beaten you never forget it. The bruises go away but the scars remain, deep, hidden, raw. You stay beaten. It takes a real coward to beat a woman. ~ John Grisham

Nobody wants to read about the honest lawyer down the street who does real estate loans and wills. If you want to sell books, you have to write about the interesting lawyers - the guys who steal all the money and take off. That's the fun stuff. ~ John Grisham

You're old. You're senile. You're too calm about this. Something must be wrong ... "
"Wonderful. I'll pull out my hair and chase butterflies around the room. ~ John Grisham

Relief, fear, and humiliation. Her parents paid for a pricey prep school education in D.C. She graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown with a degree in political science. She breezed through law school and finished with honors. A dozen megafirms offered her jobs after a federal court clerkship. The first twenty-nine years of her life had seen overwhelming success and little failure. To be discharged in such a manner was crushing. To be escorted out of the building was degrading. This was not just a minor bump in a long, rewarding career. ~ John Grisham

Appalachia was Appalachia, regardless of boundaries someone had set an eternity ago. A land of breathtaking beauty, of steep hills and rolling mountains ~ John Grisham

As well as depressing, but each day I feel like I'm making a small difference. We walked a kid out of prison last week. His parents were waiting by the gate, and everyone was in tears, including me. FYI - one ~ John Grisham

When you wake up tomorrow, another day is behind you. The days add up; the weeks run together; the months become years. ~ John Grisham

A battered wife is a married woman until she gets a divorce. Or until she kills the bastard. ~ John Grisham

I'm not in favor of the death penalty. But I'm in favor of locking these people away in maximum security units where they can never get out. They can never escape. They can never be paroled. Lock the bad ones away. But you gotta rethink everybody else. ~ John Grisham

I can't stop them. Maybe I can embarrass them from time to time, cost the City some money, but what they're doing here is happening everywhere. We live in a police state and everybody supports the cops. ~ John Grisham

Everything is carefully designed to make people crave the food that looks far more delicious on the walls than on the tables. ~ John Grisham

I will read anything by Laura Hillenbrand, Walter Isaacson, Barbara Kingsolver, John le Carre, John Grisham, Hilary Mantel, Toni Morrison, Anna Quindlen and Alice Walker. ~ Hillary Clinton

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

Poverty is a great equalizer ~ John Grisham

The spirit flowed more freely and made for a more spontaneous style of worship. ~ John Grisham

the eight warrior cops and their chief are terminated before the civil trial, they would likely become hostile witnesses against the City. ~ John Grisham

Some of his transactions involved Ada policemen, specifically one Dennis Corvin, whom Gore described as a primary supplier ~ John Grisham

(He) paused for a second and once more marveled at the speed with which one person's private business could be so thoroughly kicked around the neighborhood. ~ John Grisham

He was a quiet man, not lonely and not shy, but cerebral and serious. ~ John Grisham

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. ~ John Grisham

Karen was only five minutes late. She hugged Samantha, pecked ~ John Grisham

How do you like your coffee?" "Black, but I'll fix it myself." "I don't mind fixing your coffee for you. It's part of the job." "I'll fix it myself." "All the secretaries do it." "If you ever touch my coffee, I'll see to it that you're sent to the mail room to lick stamps." "We have an automated licker. Do they lick stamps on Wall Street?" "It was a figure of speech. ~ John Grisham

She loved Manhattan and could not imagine living anywhere else, but her world was upside down now, and, well, there was nothing certain in her future. ~ John Grisham

The human body was not meant for such abuse. After about six months they lost steam. ~ John Grisham

One thing you really have to watch as a writer is getting on a soapbox or pulpit about anything. You don't want to alienate readers. ~ John Grisham

The reason is obvious. You're my grandfather, okay. Like it or not, you're who you are and i'm who i am. And i'm here right now, so what are we going to do about it? -Adam Cayhall- ~ John Grisham

Some people have more guts than brains. ~ John Grisham

Rejection comes easy, because you learn quickly that the worst thing that can happen is to hear the word "no ~ John Grisham

if you don't think about death, you don't appreciate life. ~ John Grisham

The theory was simple: If a man had enough sense to accumulate a bunch of cash, then he would certainly make a worthy U.S senator. ~ John Grisham

And that's the mission of The Innocence Project in New York, is to exonerate people who have been wrongfully convicted, and also work from a policy angle with Congress and state legislatures to prevent future wrongful convictions. ~ John Grisham

beautiful country with spectacular views. As ~ John Grisham

She was drained from the shock and fear of looking at the emotional wreckage of real humans, desperate people with little hope and looking to her for help. ~ John Grisham

After a leisurely slide into second, Joe bounced to his feet, looked at Marichal, shrugged, smiled, and spread his arms as if to say, You throw at me, I'll make you pay. ~ John Grisham

I was guilty all right. Guilty of stupidity for allowing myself to fall into such a mess. ~ John Grisham

because he was always around, and because ~ John Grisham

Booker Sistrunk sat awkwardly with his hands behind him and continued the mouthing: "You oughtta be ashamed of yourself, treating a brother like this." "The white guy's gettin' the same treatment," Ozzie said. "You're violating my civil rights." "And you're violatin' mine with your mouth. Now shut up or I'll lock you under the jail. We got a little basement down there. ~ John Grisham

was in the Gray family forever, way back to the early ~ John Grisham

Hubbard obtained the land from Sylvester's widow. ~ John Grisham

One good thing about jail is that it allows you to think a lot. ~ John Grisham

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. ~ John Grisham

He began by talking about daughters and how special they are. How they are different from little boys and need special protection. He told them of his own daughter and the special bond that exists between father and daughter, a bond that could not be explained and should not be tampered with. ~ John Grisham

The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people. ~ John Grisham

He's a two-faced, cutthroat, dirt-dumb, chicken shit, slimy, little bastard with a bright future in politics. ~ John Grisham

What's on the outside to prevent their return? They are now convicted felons, a branding they will never be able to shake. The odds were stacked against them to begin with, and now that they're tagged as felons, life in the free world is somehow supposed to improve? These are the real casualties of our wars. The war on drugs. The war on crime. Unintended victims of tough laws passed by tough politicians over the past forty years. One million young black men now warehoused in decaying prisons, idling away the days at taxpayer expense. Our prisons are packed. Our streets are filled with drugs. Who's winning the war? ~ John Grisham

And they drank heavily, partied with great enthusiasm, and relished the drug culture; they moved in and out and slept around, and this was okay because they defined their own morality. They were fighting for the Mexicans and the redwoods, dammit! They had to be good people! ~ John Grisham

When witnesses concoct lies, they often miss the obvious. ~ John Grisham

I confess to loving a good murder mystery - anything by Scott Turow or John Grisham. Maybe it's a holdover from my days as a criminal prosecutor in Seattle. ~ Gary Locke

Her destination was the hospital in Beckley, West Virginia, a town of twenty thousand. ~ John Grisham

And NFL heavyweights to help wave ~ John Grisham

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

They, the lawmakers, were hoodwinked by the insurance companies who are still funding the national tort reform movement, a political crusade that has been wildly successful. Virtually every state has fallen in line with caps on damages and other laws designed to keep folks away from the courthouse. So far, no one has seen a decline in insurance rates. An investigative report by my pal at the Chronicle revealed that 90 percent of our legislators took campaign money from the insurance industry. And this is considered a democracy. ~ John Grisham

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. ~ John Grisham

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. ~ John Grisham

Americans no longer experience vacations. They simply Sony them so they can ignore them for the rest of the year. ~ John Grisham

A hundred years earlier, in Hopt v. Utah, the Supreme Court ruled that a confession is not admissible if it is obtained by operating on the hopes or fears of the accused, and in doing so deprives him of the freedom of will or self-control necessary to make a voluntary statement. In 1897, the Court, in Bram v. United States, said that a statement must be free and voluntary, not extracted by any sorts of threats or violence or promises, however slight. A ~ John Grisham

I've loved you all my life. Even before we met. Part of it wasn't even you. It was just a promise of you. ~ John Grisham

arrived in the same car half an hour later, and as they were putting on rain slickers an ambulance arrived with a crew of three. From the gravel road, they all strained to see the old sycamore, but after a few seconds of focusing it was apparent there was a man hanging from it. Calvin told them everything he knew. The deputies decided it was best to proceed as if a crime had been committed, and they prohibited the ambulance crew from approaching the scene. Another deputy ~ John Grisham

We are extremely private, and we really got sort of ambushed by the notoriety. ~ John Grisham

Dear Miss Sam: Thanks so much for your lovely epistle. You've gotten so soft in only three months. Must be all those cookies. If I read you right, you want some assurances that you'll be (1) adored by your bosses, (2) worshipped by your colleagues, (3) appreciated by your clients, (4) virtually guaranteed a partnership which will lead to a long, full, happy life, and (5) given enough office space to make you happy, in spite of the obscene prices per square foot now being demanded by Manhattan landlords (our clients), recession or not. ~ John Grisham

I've had nine of my books adapted to film, and almost all were enjoyable. I've been very lucky with Hollywood, and look forward to more movies being adapted. But I don't get involved in that process. I know nothing about making movies and I stay away from it and hope for the best. ~ John Grisham

If the video camera was loaded with a tape, it was never seen. If Detective Smith made a report of the interview, it was never produced in the legal proceedings that followed. ~ John Grisham

I'll bet you want to know how a person like Stocky can be thrown into a debtors' prison, something this country outlawed about two hundred years ago. Right?" Samantha slowly nodded. Mattie continued, "More than likely, you're also certain that throwing someone in jail because he cannot pay a fine or a fee violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And, you are no doubt familiar with the 1983 Supreme Court decision, the name escapes me right now, in which the Court ruled that before a person can be thrown in jail for not paying a fine it must be proven that he or she was willfully not paying. In other words, he could pay but he refused. All this and more, right? ~ John Grisham

What kind of name is Siler-Spence? I mean, what's wrong with these women who use hyphens? What if her name was Skowinski and she married a guy named Levondowski? Would her little liberated soul insist she go through life as F.Gwendolin Skowinski- Levondowski? ~ John Grisham

Lucien had taught him that fear was good; fear was an ally; that every lawyer was afraid when he stood before a new jury and presented his case. It was okay to be afraid - just don't show it. Jurors would not follow the lawyer with the quickest tongue or prettiest words. They would not follow the sharpest dresser. They would not follow a clown or court jester. They would not follow a lawyer who preached the loudest or fought the hardest. Lucien had convinced him that jurors followed the lawyer who told the truth, regardless of his looks, words, or superficial abilities. A lawyer had to be himself in the courtroom, and if he was afraid, so be it. The jurors were afraid too. ~ John Grisham

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. ~ John Grisham

That's sounds right. Another $5,000 went to dress up the Little League park where he had played so many games. Seems like he paid off the MORTAGE on his parents' home, which wasn't that much. ~ John Grisham

He made a mistake, one that would send him to death row and eventually cost him his freedom for life. ~ John Grisham

son of a freed slave who took possession of ~ John Grisham

And I'm sure Theo can always find her. ~ John Grisham

But the Court of Criminal Appeals was not always a rubber stamp for the prosecution. Much to Mark Barrett's delight, he received the news on April 16, 1991, that a new trial had been ordered for Greg Wilhoit. ~ John Grisham