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.

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.

In my case, once you sell a lot of books and you are labeled a bestselling author, the serious critics are never gonna say anything nice about you.

In one long glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God.

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!

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

I was tired of secrets, tired of seeing things I was not supposed to see. And so I just cried.