John Grisham Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

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

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
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.

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

John Grisham
We don't live lavishly, we don't splash money around, we don't publicise gifts. But, at least within our part of the country, I did become very well known and when something like Forbes magazine prints lists of people's incomes, then it is difficult to keep things quiet.

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
I guess under the right circumstances, a man will do just about anything.

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
Once again, I was reminded that Tally was the prettiest girl I'd ever met, and when she smiled at me my mind went blank. Once you've seen a pretty girl naked, you feel a certain attachment to her.

John Grisham
It's as if we spend our entire lives avoiding Jell-O but it is always there at the end, waiting.

John Grisham
He'd had his career, his triumphs. Success had brought him nothing but misery; he couldn't handle it. Success had thrown him in the gutter.

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

John Grisham
Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.

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

John Grisham
I didn't dare think of the future; the past was still happening.

John Grisham