17 Quotes by Richard North Patterson

There are some things he doesn't want to know about himself, and others he doesn't want anybody else to know. Which makes him like the rest of us. ...There are moments in the lives of others that excite both our disgust and our shame, the fear of what we ourselves might do. ...I venture to say that everyone on this jury, and everyone in this room, has done things that they're ashamed of, and told lies that they regret.

You can't supply some other adult with something they don't have. Any more than you can sustain a relationship by offering up your sense of yourself as a kind of bribe. In the end, everyone loses.

he knew that men were too complex to be defined by the worst moment in their lives

his legacy, if there is one, is that I try to do my best to see people whole, for who they are and what they've been through. especially those who matters to me

The business of writing is empathising with situations that aren’t your own.

No one should be judged by the worst moment of his life.

Morally repugnant and tactically stupid are a lousy combination.

Problem was that we could make things worse but we couldn’t make anything better.

Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing.