There is nothing you can do about the past except keep it there.

There is no client as scary as an innocent man.

If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?

I think books with weak or translucent plots can survive if the character being drawn along the path is rich, interesting and multi-faceted. The opposite is not true.

You can't patch a wounded soul with a Band-Aid.

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

I think I would spend the first 30 weeks not writing, just clearing my head and seeing parts of the world I haven't seen and going back to places I have seen and love.

I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.

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.

Any writer would rather dig into character than dig into fancy plots.

What is important is not what you hear said, it's what you observe.

From the mind which thinks to die, let my soul sleep tonight.

Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty and showing sympathy for and paying homage to aristocratic privilege.

Teaching and writing about philosophy is about the only thing I've ever been really good at.

This is not a reaction against a negative world. It's a response to a negative world.

I'm physically completely mal-coordinated. My best friend used to make me run for the bus just to give herself a quick, cheap laugh because I definitely don't have that sophisticated cool thing down.

The biggest challenge in New Orleans has been to find workers who can climb a ladder after lunch.

Wes Craven is a wonderful friend, and we had a really good time together.

Social distinctions concern themselves ultimately with whom you may and may not marry.

Don't take anything for granted, because tomorrow is not promised to any of us.

There are two things that really get under Gary Neville's skin: scousers and policemen.