Quotes from John Grisham

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

There are so many colorful characters in Florida. There's a lot of money, development - not all of it good - and corruption.

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.

I'm not good at raising money. I don't like to raise money. It's been my experience that when I ask someone for money, it's not long before they return the favor.

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

Don't compromise yourself - you're all you have.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Every morning I wake at 6am or 6.30am, champing at the bit.

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.

Don't compromise yourself - you're all you have.

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 tomorrow, and certainly not yesterday.

Some people have more guts than brains.

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

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

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

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