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" I hate second-guessing other lawyers because I know that I've tried and lost cases, and somebody could sit there and say, 'Should have done it this way,' and they'd have been right. "
Scott Turow
Lawyers
Lost
Say
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" I'm an ambitious person, and Harvard makes me feel successful, just having gotten in here. That's the ugly side of why I'm proud of being at Harvard Law School. Another reason is because there's a spirit of serious intellectual endeavor here. "
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" I love criminal law. It must be the Dostoyevskian streak in me. I'm fascinated by the accumulation of forces that make people behave in ways that everybody else hates. "
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" People talk of me as being the inventor of the legal thriller. "
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" I write based on powerful inner impulses, and those seem to shift over time. "
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" All my novels are about the ambiguities that lie beneath the sharp edges of the law. "
Scott Turow
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Sharp
Law
" Certainly, when I was a boy, people liked to believe that lawyers were kind of pillars of goodness of the likes of Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' "
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Lawyers
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" Like most Americans of my age, I was very impressed by the dynamic capacities of the law, demonstrated by the Civil Rights Movement and then Watergate, animated by Sam Ervin's mantra that no person is above the law. "
Scott Turow
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Rights
" I tend to start with a kernel, a vague concept, and just begin to write things down - notes about a character, lines of dialogue, descriptive passages about a place. One idea fires another. I do that for about a year. By then there's a story, and I'll go on to a complete first draft that sews many of those ragtag pieces together. "
Scott Turow
Place
Start
Together
" In re-reading 'Presumed Innocent,' the one thing that struck me - and I re-read the book four different times in writing 'Innocent,' interested in different things each time - but I did think there were a couple of extra loops in the plot that I probably didn't need. The other thing that sort of amazed me was how discursive the book was. "
Scott Turow
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" There are lots of things about Amazon for which they deserve credit. They're innovative. There are lots of very, very happy Amazon customers. I'm not here to dispute that Amazon has been personally good for me or to say that they haven't been, so far, good to their customers. "
Scott Turow
Me
Credit
Good
" The prosecutor, who is supposed to carry the burden of proof, really is an author. "
Scott Turow
Who
Carry
Burden
" I practise law almost every day. Exclusively criminal work these days. "
Scott Turow
Almost
Day
Every Day
" Americans have grown a great deal more realistic about lawyers and the law. I think that's all for the good. A lot of people will say to you these days, 'If you are looking for justice, don't go to a courtroom.' That's just a more realistic perspective on what happens in the legal process. "
Scott Turow
Justice
Good
Perspective
" Los Angeles for many years had operated with a police department that was far smaller than other police departments had in areas of comparable or larger size, New York and Chicago being the most obvious examples. "
Scott Turow
Los Angeles
New York
Police
" On the streets, unrequited love and death go together almost as often as in Shakespeare. "
Scott Turow
Streets
Go
Death
" I grew up on the north side of Chicago, in West Rogers Park, an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood. When I was 13, my parents moved to Winnetka, Illinois, an upper class, WASPy suburb where Jews - as well as Blacks and Catholics - were unwelcome on many blocks. I suffered the spiritual equivalent of whiplash. "
Scott Turow
Class
Chicago
Parents
" 'Black Beauty,' by Anna Sewell, remains a star-dusted memory because my mom read it aloud to my sister and me at night for months. I was no more than 7. "
Scott Turow
Mom
Night
Sister
" I never really felt free to talk a lot about my family life because I don't want to sacrifice anybody else's privacy. If you look through the archives, you will see, for example, no pictures of my children. That is not because I don't love them. I think I've been a really good dad; at least, I try to be. "
Scott Turow
Love
Life
Good
" I don't know if a novelist ever fully detaches him- or herself from what they wrote and the way they wrote it. I can watch 'Presumed Innocent' again and again, and I will always be bothered by the same things that will never bother anybody else. "
Scott Turow
Always
I Can
Innocent
" 'Presumed Innocent' was written over a six to seven year period with intervals in between where I was figuring out the end of the book and writing other stuff... My life as a writer was carried on against the odds. I had written four unpublished novels by then... as a writer of fiction, I hadn't gotten very far. I just wanted to do it. "
Scott Turow
Writing
End
Book
" Because I spend so much time traveling, I tend to do most of my reading on the same iPad on which I write. For me, it's words, not paper, that matter most in the end. This practice has had the additional benefit of greatly reducing the time I spend storming through the house, defaming the mysterious forces who 'hid my book.' "
Scott Turow
Time
Reading
Words
" Widespread public access to knowledge, like public education, is one of the pillars of our democracy, a guarantee that we can maintain a well-informed citizenry. "
Scott Turow
Like
Knowledge
Education
" I don't like re-writing very much. The fourth and the fifth draft - that's too much like work. There's not much inspiration about it, and the lawyerly side kicks in - being very careful and somewhat technical. "
Scott Turow
Inspiration
Work
Too Much
" I tend to write in the mornings. "
Scott Turow
Mornings
Write
Tend
" If life's lessons could be reduced to single sentences, there would be no need for fiction. "
Scott Turow
Life
Need
Lessons
" I really believe that the movie will never be as good as the book, both because the book goes on longer - a movie is basically an abridgment of a book - and because books are internal. But they are incredibly powerful. The visual format is, you know, amazing. "
Scott Turow
Amazing
Good
Powerful
" I was one of those kids who never wanted to be anything but a novelist. And I don't know a lot of people who truly live the life that they dreamed of. "
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Live
Kids
Know
" I trained as a writer before I became a lawyer. I was headed for a life as an English professor, but that just wasn't me. I'm not a scholar; I didn't have a scholar's attitude toward literature. "
Scott Turow
Lawyer
Literature
Life
" The one thing I would like more credit for is being part of a movement which involves recognising the importance of plot and asserting that books of literary worth could be written that had plots. "
Scott Turow
Movement
Credit
Worth
" Generally, I like to write in the morning before all the dust of dreams has blown away. Beforehand, I read two papers, cook my breakfast and then settle down in front of the word processor, usually by 8 A.M. I'll write, and then check e-mail or voicemail when things stall. "
Scott Turow
Breakfast
Dreams
Morning