I think one of the blessings that I’ve had in watching, you know, films be made now from four of my books is to realize that it’s a separate thing. It’s a separate work. – Scott Turow
If life’s lessons could be reduced to single sentences, there would be no need for fiction. – Scott Turow
My sister was a twin, and the other baby died in childbirth, and I was three at the time, and I always kind of thought it haunted me. It was a weird thing. My dad was an ob-gyn, and so it was confusing that the other baby didn’t come home from the hospital. – Scott Turow
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
All my life, I’ve wanted to write a book inspired by my relationship with my grandfather. Basically, my grandfather was a guy who everybody in the family regarded as disagreeable at best. But I loved him intensely. He was wonderful to me. – Scott Turow
I adore the company of other writers because they are so often lively minds and, frequently, blazingly funny. And of course, we get each other in a unique way. – Scott Turow
On the streets, unrequited love and death go together almost as often as in Shakespeare. – Scott Turow
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
There are a whole lot of little tales told in ‘Presumed Innocent,’ whether it’s about the Hobberly kid, who was an important witness who ends up assassinated, or an accountant named Marcy Lupino, who meets a horrible fate in a state penitentiary. There’s less of that in ‘Innocent,’ and deliberately so. – Scott Turow
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
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
For thousands and thousands of American kids, libraries are the only safe place they can find to study, a haven free from the dangers of street or the numbing temptations of television. As schools cut back services, the library looms even more important to countless children. – Scott Turow
‘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
I count myself as one of millions of Americans whose life simply would not be the same without the libraries that supported my learning. – Scott Turow
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
I’ve become President of the Author’s Guild, and, in part because they thought I had to know what I was talking about and also as a sort of coronation present, they got me an iPad. And I have to tell you, I’m crazy about it. It’s got some bugs, but it’s basically replaced my laptop. I’m very happy with it. – Scott Turow
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
I’m a computer guy, and one of the things I did with the good fortune that ‘Presumed Innocent’ brought me was to buy one of the very first laptop computers. It weighed about eight and a half pounds, by the way. – Scott Turow
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
I keep two sentimental mementos on my desk to remind me of two favorite men. There is an inkwell that my Uncle Seymour made, a brass grotesque he mounted on a marble base. And my grandfather’s shaving cup is there, used to store pencils and pens. – Scott Turow
I think lawyers have a fidelity to the system itself that’s always got to be with them, and indeed, most of the defense lawyers I know observe that. – Scott Turow
