I seriously doubt I would ever have written the first story had I not been a lawyer. I never dreamed of being a writer. I wrote only after witnessing a trial.

I seriously doubt I would ever have written the first story had I not been a lawyer. I never dreamed of being a writer. I wrote only after witnessing a trial.

I have learned not to read reviews. Period. And I hate reviewers. All of them, or at least all but two or three. Life is much simpler ignoring reviews and the nasty people who write them. Critics should find meaningful work.

I always do book signings with the same blue pen. That way, if I add a personalised message to a book I've already signed, it'll be in the same colour as my signature.

I always try to tell a good story, one with a compelling plot that will keep the pages turning. That is my first and primary goal. Sometimes I can tackle an issue-homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty-and wrap a good story around it.

I don't want to force my politics on my readers.

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

I give off rather mixed messages about the law. On the one hand, I can honestly say I don't miss working in a law office. On the other hand I do enjoy watching the law and while the profession may have its problems, I have sold zillions of books out of magnifying them.

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. I never got in serious trouble, except for my grades.

I was a lawyer for 10 years - a short time, but it molded me into who I am. My clients were little people fighting big corporations, so it was a natural thing to not only represent the little guy but also to pull for him - it's the American way.

I was a lawyer for 10 years, and several of my clients had the misfortune, through no fault of my own, of going to prison. I visited them occasionally.

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

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.

More than 100 people have been sent to death row who were later exonerated because they weren't guilty or fairly tried. Most criminal defendants do not get adequate representation because there are not enough public defenders to represent them. There is a lot that is wrong.

Most criminal defendants do not get adequate representation because there are not enough public defenders to represent them. There is a lot that is wrong.

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.

My name became a brand, and I'd love to say that was the plan from the start. But the only plan was to keep writing books. And I've stuck to that ever since.

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.

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.

Prisons are fascinating places, especially when the inmates are educated white-collar types.

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.

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.

Sometimes I can tackle an issue -homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty - and wrap a good story around it. These are the best books, the ones with a story and a message.

Still, something about writing made me spend large hours of my free time at my desk.

There's always such a rush to judgment. It makes a fair trial hard to get.

When you work at street level you never know who's going to walk through your door.

Wrongful convictions happen every week in every state in this country. And they happen for all the same reasons. Sloppy police work. Eyewitness identification is the most - is the worst type almost. Because it's wrong about half the time. Think about that.

Dont compromise yourself youre all you have.

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

Old people accustomed to loneliness, though no one expects to spend his or her last years in solitude, absent from loved ones.

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

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

Quitting is not the answer. Life is not fair, and you can't quit every time something unfair happens to you.

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

The mother of a trophy wife is not automatically a trophy mother-in-law.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.