The truth of the matter is that the people who succeed in the arts most often are the people who get up again after getting knocked down. Persistence is critical.

People are offering competing visions of what happened in the past. And the justice system is willing to accept either of those competing visions and to impose consequences as a result. When you think of it that way, it's a little bit startling, because we want to believe that there is one truth and, therefore, one justice, whereas, if you have practiced law as long as I have, you realize that there is actually a range of acceptable outcomes.

If the rewards to authors go down, simple economics says there will be fewer authors. It's not that people won't burn with the passion to write. The number of people wanting to be novelists is probably not going to decline - but certainly the number of people who are going to be able to make a living as authors is going to dramatically decrease.

I adore the company of other writers because they are so often lively minds and, frequently, blazingly funny. And of course, we get each other in a unique way.

I count myself as one of millions of Americans whose life simply would not be the same without the libraries that supported my learning.

There cannot be any greater challenge to the law than trying to adjudicate mass crimes like war crimes.

The first time I remember really being excited about a book was The Count of Monte Cristo.