John Grisham Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

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.

John Grisham
It was a ping-pong match. I was told that Crichton's agent started asking for the X million Grisham got plus a dollar. And these were cash deals, not options. Money on the table. And everyone involved made money. Now I can barely give film rights away. The business has completely changed and TV has become far more fun and creative.

John Grisham
It wasn't until I wrote The Chamber (1994) that I realised I could weave a novel round things such as the death penalty and some of the racial history of Mississippi. And that's still very much the consensus among white people in the deep South. Black people know better because they have seen so many wrongful convictions and executions.

John Grisham
I have spoken to many innocent prisoners and they all have the most amazing stories to tell. But I'm also well aware that you can't preach too much while working in popular culture.

John Grisham
My first publishing experience was entirely normal and my second entirely abnormal. I responded much better to the second experience than I did to the first.

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

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
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.

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

John Grisham
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.

John Grisham
In a situation like this I'm always reminded how quickly we abandon the presumption of innocence. There's always such a rush to judgment. It makes a fair trial hard to get.

John Grisham
My father worked seven days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day, for a construction company. He would take all the overtime the company would give him and we started to do well as a family. That sense of hard work bringing rewards was very much instilled into all of us.

John Grisham
It [A Time to Kill (1989)] took me three years, and most of the time I thought I would never finish it. Eventually 5,000 hardback copies were printed and I was thrilled. But they did not sell out, it did not get a second edition, it was not published in paperback or picked up for foreign rights. Then I wrote The Firm.

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

John Grisham
The coffee arrives, and we backslide into what lawyers do best — talking about other lawyers.

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

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

John Grisham
Once again I had asked an innocent question, and because of it, I was banished from the conversation.

John Grisham
I wanted to be Tom Sawyer. I loved that romanticised view of a kid's life. It wasn't until a lot later that I realised there was more going on with Tom and Huck than just an adventure.

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

John Grisham
In little pockets of conversation, old men were telling stories of ancient floods. Women were talking of about how much rain there'd been in other towns -- Paragould, Lepanto, and Manila.

John Grisham
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.

John Grisham
Because I was single, there was a chance I was a homosexual. Because I went to Syracuse, wherever that was, then I was probably a Communist. Or worse, a Liberal. Because I was from Memphis, I was a subversive intent on embarrassing Ford County.

John Grisham