David Baldacci quotes:

I'd read a lot of thrillers about politicians and presidents, but never one where you flip the stereotypes and make good people bad and bad people good.

In every thriller written about Washington, particularly after 9/11, there are good guys and there are bad guys, and there's no gray area at all.

Fiction is sort of a way to set the record straight, and let people at least believe that justice can be achieved and the right outcomes can occur.

People have given me classified information, but always with the disclaimer 'This can never end up in a book.' And it never does.

As my father wrote, one's courage, hope, and spirit can be severely tried by the happenstance of life. But as I learned on this Virginia mountain, so long as one never loses faith, it is impossible to ever truly be alone.

As a lawyer, as a private citizen, you see a lot of injustice. You see a lot of people who should have been punished and are not, and people who were punished wrongfully are not vindicated. Fiction is sort of a way to set the record straight, and let people at least believe that justice can be achieved and the right outcomes can occur.

Today might not be so good. But tomorrow, you got another chance to get it right.

I'm scattered, and then that last hundred pages, bam, I'm a laser.

You haven't yet seen me be rude. When I am it's unmistakable. - Michelle Maxwell.

Most folks here got rules 'bout trespassing. Warning shot's fired right close to the head. Get they's attention. Next shot gets a lot more personal. Now I'm too old to waste time firing a warning shot.....

The military is a very cool world to write about. I went down to Ft. Benning, Ga., for military training, and I learned a lot about soldiers and officers and why they joined up and what their life has been like.

Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?

Depending on the situation, sometimes you can know a person better in ten minutes than someone you have crossed paths with all your life.

Because life doesn't work that way. You can do everything perfectly. Do everything you think you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill every expectation that other people may have. And you still won't get the results you think you deserve. Life is crazy and maddening and often makes no sense.

It would actually constitute more than a miracle, he realised. It would take divine intervention plus luck, plus some unknown element of cosmic wizardry.

Dark, cool, musty, smoky, where light fell funny and everyone looked like someone you knew or wanted to know. Or, more likely, wanted to forget.

He'd been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants [...], which he'd accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person.

Pender laughed. "Verify? In this day and age? Who cares about verifying anything? It's all about the speed. Who gets there first defines the truth. You know that as well as any man living.

I'm ever curious about the world. I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about. Having a vivid imagination is also a plus.

But protagonists are protagonists and heroes are heroes.

Most people associate reading with laying on the beach. They don't see that it's crucial for a democracy!

Why waste time trying to discover the truth, when you can so easily create it?

Life was not fair. If you wanted something you had to take it. Before someone else took it from you. Neatly dissected down to its essence, life was one long series of lily pad hoppings. The quick and the resourceful were able to adapt and survive; all others were simply crushed as a more nimble creature landed on the lily pad they had occupied for too long.

I'm a wicked ping-pong player.

But if I worried too much about publishers' expectations, I'd probably paralyze myself and not be able to write anything.

All you have to do [to win a Pulitzer Prize] is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.

It's often said that God works in mysterious ways. You have to really think about what He's trying to do. You can't be lazy and believe in God; He doesn't make it that easy. It takes spirit and faith and passion to really believe. Like most things worthwhile in life, you get back what you put into it. Only with faith, you get back a lot more.

It's my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they're going. For them it's the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello.

In some ways, it was far easier to be bad than good. When you're bad, you don't care what happens to anyone other than yourself. When you're trying to do god, you have to worry about everyone.

She apparently didn't expect any trouble but she also never expected everything to go perfectly either. That was a good rule to live by Robie knew. Because perfection was rarely the case in the field.

People who have expertise just love to share it. That's human nature.

I look for material that both interest me and challenges me. If I am drawn to the material and I have to work hard at it, the characters and the plots reflect the hours and hours of research.

It's not getting from A to B. It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between...This train is alive with things that should be seen and heard. It's a living, breathing something -- you just have to want to learn its rhythm.

The real worth of a person came from how he acted during the bad times. (John Fiske)

Assumptions are dangerous things. I like facts a lot better.

As a lawyer, as a private citizen, you see a lot of injustice.

I can write with a crying child on my lap. I have. Often.

Passion is a rare commodity. When you find it, treasure it and never give it up!

Libraries rock! Not a sermon, just a fact. As a kid I was a library rat and books changed my life. They can change yours.

I'm tired of people screaming about price and forgetting about the content.

It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between.

Human beings are infinitely fallible, completely unreliable. Science is not. Science is absolute. Under strict principles, if you do A and B, then C will occur. This rarely happens if you inject the inefficiences of humanity into the process.

A young man's ambition, can there be a more fleeting prospect?

Some people take 10 years to write a book and some can do one in under a year.

Small mistakes tend to lead to large ones. Ours is a lifetime appoinment, and all you have is your reputation. Once it's gone, it doesn't comeback.

Confidence is one thing, disrespect is quite another. (Justice Elizabeth Knight)

Confidence is inspiring. Yet so often misplaced. (Robert Thornhill)

Shaw, we're going to die, aren't we?" Probably. Why?" Just wanted confirmation.

When a poor man gives something, that is a sacrifice indeed. When a rich man gives something, it hardly rises to the same level.

Anyone who's lived has lost somebody.

It's the hardest thing in the world to put yourself in someone else's place, try to really feel what they feel, figure out why they do the things they do. Especially when it's easier to stick a label on something. Or someone.

You know what kind of person it takes to run for President? Not normal. They could start out okay, but by the time they reach that level they've sold their soul to the devil so many times and stomped the guts out of enough people that they are definitely not like you and me, not even close.

Time doesn't really heal, it just makes you not to give a crap

The human spirit was the strongest medicine on earth. And sometimes all it needed was a little encouragement to pull off a miracle.

You learn a lot about a person when she saves your life, - Mecho

It's hard, Cotton. To let yourself love something you know you may never have.

Half truths were a wonderful way to inspire credibility.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, was above corruption so long as human beings were involved.

Trapped in a trap of your own making.

That's what civilization sometimes did to threats, real or perceived. They walled them off. Us against them. Survival of the fittest. You die so I can live.

Two people can care for each other but not want the same things.

I'm ever curious about the world.

Only I could drink a thousand drinks and never forget a damn thing. I would just remember every detail of the thousand drinks down to the shapes of the ice cubes.