Quotes from Greg Iles

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.   —Aristotle

You can't build happiness on someone else's pain.

We do not just belong to this universe, we are it.

Whenever life gets too good, whenever fate hands you something wonderful, something else gets taken away.

We judge and punish based on facts, but facts are not truth. Facts are like a buried skeleton uncovered long after death. Truth is fluid. Truth is alive. To know the truth requires understanding, the most difficult human art. It requires seeing all things at once, forward and backward, the way God sees.

that right meant more than might; that being faithful and good meant more than being rich; that honor superseded all.

Emotions are by nature amorphous. When confined to words, our longings and passions, our rebellions and humiliations often seem melodramatic, trivial, or even pathetic.

I listened in amazement. You saw a face on an American street, or in an office, and you had no idea that a tragic epic lay behind it.

I educated myself, discovered my gift for language, learned that the larger world lay not across oceans but within the human mind and heart.

When you drive down Cemetery Road, the angel appears to be looking directly at you. Yet once you pass the monument and look back over your shoulder, the angel is still looking at you. Thus the appellation: the Turning Angel.

The Terrible Truth is that brutality is part of human nature, and all the laws in the world can't neuter it.

My father has always been the heart of my Penn Cage novels.

Great song lyrics are as valid a part of American literature as any novel.

I am just like everyone else.