Quotes from Scott Turow

Life is simply experience; for reasons not readily discerned, we attempt to go on.

If life's lessons could be reduced to single sentences, ther would be no need for fiction.

The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.

In re-reading 'Presumed Innocent,' the one thing that struck me - and I re-read the book four different times in writing 'Innocent,' interested in different things each time - but I did think there were a couple of extra loops in the plot that I probably didn't need. The other thing that sort of amazed me was how discursive the book was.

The one thing I would like more credit for is being part of a movement which involves recognising the importance of plot and asserting that books of literary worth could be written that had plots.

Life, of course, is full of people you discover you like a lot and then never see again.

Hey," he said, "you won't ever meet a man who likes women better than me. They're the best thing on the planet. And I don't just mean horizontal. Women hold the world together.

I am the prosecutor. I represent the state. I am here to present to you the evidence of a crime. Together you will weigh this evidence. You will deliberate upon it. You will decide if it proves the defendant's guilt.

For all of my success, in looking back I couldn't identify a moment when, at core, I had felt fully at home with myself. My

Muriel never had had much concern about the arcane reasoning that emanated from appellate courts. The conflicts in the law that interested her were writ large—guilt or innocence, the rights of individuals against the rights of the community, the proper uses of power. The scrimshaw involved in etching decisions into words was largely decorative in her mind.

But Dixon had once been a soldier. He knew that courage was not the absence of fear but the ability to carry on with dignity in spite of it.

She is arguing the

offering silent tribute to the unwillingness of any bureaucracy to go out of business. By

alter kocker like me. Street-word is Hal hired Coral

Will banntot turn snow to rain, or roll back the sea, but it can keep you from being simply steamrollered by fate.

Will cannot turn snow into rain, or roll back the seas, but it can keep you from being simply steamrollered by fate.

Who is it? I called sweetly. It's Wilt Chamberlain. Open up so we can play one on one.

There is nothing like the plumbing fixtures to remind you that you're not in Kansas anymore. By

She made up this whole tale about me. I worked in the jail. I hated the men in there. Just the way she and most of the other girls hated the men in the club. That's why they seemed to do it. For the chance to look down on men, who want it so badly, so openly, and who're not going to get it.

It was not that I felt that I'd done poorly; I just realized that I'd missed the chance to do wel..

I am not sure, I answered. I hope it won't break my heart if I don't do well. I had been concentrating on developing that kind of attitude since I'd emerged from my depression in November. I'd realized how much I had taken the achievement ethic to heart - I had been so hard on my mistakes and middling performances. A sincere effort was all I owed myself.

Some speak of the nobility of the law. Stern has not always found that to be true. Too much of the grubby bone shop, the odor of the abattoir, emanates from every criminal courtroom. It is at heart a very nasty business to accuse, to judge, to punish. But the law, at least, seeks to govern misfortune, to ensure that a society's wrath is not visited at random. In human affairs, reason will never fully triumph; but there is no better cause to champion. At

mustache, and

lawyer by training, Kajevic had the same talent as Hitler, making his gargantuan self-importance a proxy for his country's and his rantings the voice of his people's long-suppressed rage.