John Grisham Quotes

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.

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

Reading is by far the most successful pursuit of happiness.

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.

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

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.

When witnesses concoct lies, they often miss the obvious.

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

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

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.

Some people have more guts than brains.

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.

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

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.

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

Critics should find meaningful work.

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

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

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.

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

Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.

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.

Life is short..Live to the fullest.