I cannot think of a day in my life when the library didn’t exert a potent attraction for me, offering a sense of the specialness of each individual’s curiosity and his or her quest to satisfy it.

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

Who are we but the stories we tell about ourselves, particularly if we accept them?

What kills a person at twenty-five? Leukemia. An accident. But George knows the better odds are that someone who passes at that age dies of unhappiness. Drug overdose. Suicide. Reckless behavior.

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

As a defense lawyer, he refused to condemn his clients. Everyone else in the system-the cops, the prosecutors, the juries and judges-would take care of that; they didn't need his help.

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