You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.

We're all seeking order. We're all seeking control.

I'm a disciple of Raymond Chandler, who said in his essays that there's a quality of redemption in anything that can be called art.

I've sold 11 of my books to Hollywood. There are all kinds of my books on shelves in Hollywood because the scripts didn't capture the characters.

Well, did he do it?" She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn't matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant "did it" or not. What mattered was the evidence against him -- the proof -- and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.

I'm not 'Mr. No-By-The-Book.' I just want to make sure the character is by the book.

There is no client as scary as an innocent man.