Well, I outline fanatically. I am a long thinker and a slow writer, though I am trying to get faster. — William Landay Copy Share Image
“Predisposition is not predestination. We humans are much, much more than our DNA.” — William Landay Destiny Copy Share Image
“but good friendships require complementary personalities, not identical ones.” — William Landay Friend Copy Share Image
“So I got on with the business of lawyering away at the evidence. Minimizing it. Defending Jacob.” — William Landay Business Copy Share Image
Damage hardens us all. It will harden you too, when it finds you—and it will find you — William Landay Damage Copy Share Image
“NPD is not a chemical imbalance. And it is not genetic. It is a complex of behaviors, a deeply ingrained habit.” — William Landay Habits Copy Share Image
You can write a great book and be ignored. Literary history is full of classics that were under-appreciated in their own time. — William Landay Copy Share Image
I can't say that I ever actually decided to become a writer. It kind of snuck up on me. — William Landay Copy Share Image
“Free will is as important to the law as it is to religion or any other code of morality. We do not… — William Landay Morality Copy Share Image
“narcissistic personality disorder. This is the one you probably know something about. Its primary characteristics are grandiosity and lack of empathy.” — William Landay Copy Share Image
“There is an ancient rule: actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea -- the act does not create guilt unless the… — William Landay Guilt Copy Share Image
“Grand juries serve for months, and they figure out pretty quickly what the gig is all about: accuse, point your finger, name… — William Landay Copy Share Image
“It was as if there was a place called After, and if I could just push my family across to that shore,… — William Landay Family Copy Share Image
“defendant … snap. “So what was that trigger? What was it that converted a fantasy of murder into the real thing?” He paused. It… — William Landay Murder Copy Share Image
“This is an aspect of crime stories I never fully appreciated until I became one: it is so ruinously expensive to mount… — William Landay Accusation Copy Share Image
An emotion is a thought, yes, an idea, but it is also a sensation, an ache in your body. Desire, love, hate,… — William Landay Copy Share Image
“I have an idea that is is what enduring love really means, Your memories of a girl at seventeen become as real… — William Landay Double vision Copy Share Image
“At seventeen, I knew: my entire childhood had been just a prelude to this girl. I had never felt anything like it,… — William Landay Childhood Copy Share Image
“I could not help seeing in Laurie the ghost of her younger self, the teenaged girl with a lovely, full, heart-shaped face.… — William Landay Double vision Copy Share Image
“But then, we all tell ourselves stories about ourselves. The money man tells himself that by getting rich he is actually enriching… — William Landay Art Copy Share Image
“Out popped Paul Duffy, in plain clothes except for a state police windbreaker and a badge clipped to his belt. He looked… — William Landay Copy Share Image
“The towering lie of the criminal justice system—that we can reliably determine the truth, that we can know “beyond a reasonable doubt”… — William Landay Criminal justice Copy Share Image
“My childhood ended that summer. I learned the word murder. But it is not enough to be told a word as big… — William Landay Children Copy Share Image
“They were chosen for their perfect ignorance of these things. That is how the system works. In the end, the lawyers and… — William Landay Amateurs Copy Share Image
“no one worth knowing can be quite known, no one worth possessing can be quite possessed—but” — William Landay Copy Share Image
I don't ever write with a particular audience in mind. I just write books that please me. — William Landay Audience Copy Share Image
We move through time like a man in a rowboat, looking back even as we move forward. — William Landay Clock Copy Share Image
There is no absolute beginning to any story, after all. There is only the moment you begin watching. — William Landay Beginning Copy Share Image
“All they got locked up in this hole is my body. That's all they got, my body, not me. I'm everywhere, see?… — William Landay Copy Share Image
“…I never expected to lose in court. In practice, I did lose, of course. Every lawyer loses, just as every baseball player… — William Landay Copy Share Image
“Witness: I thought it was a mistake. Based on what we knew at the time, it was a mistake to turn away… — William Landay Failure Copy Share Image
“This is the best thing about men's friendships: most any awkwardness can be ignored by mutual agreement and, true connection being unimaginable,… — William Landay Awkwardness Copy Share Image
“I rather doubt he had the sense to see the truth: that there are wounds worse than fatal, which the law's little… — William Landay Truth Copy Share Image
“Confirmation bias is the tendency to see things in your environment that confirm your preconceived ideas and not see things that conflict… — William Landay Bias Copy Share Image
“The truth is, the best win-lost records are not built on great trial work. They are built on cherry-picking only the strongest… — William Landay Right and wrong Copy Share Image
“She did not want to go but understood that I was uneasy, that I felt spotlighted here, that I was not much… — William Landay Copy Share Image
“It is a common architectural strategy to build courtrooms without windows, to enhance the effect of a chamber isolated from the everyday… — William Landay Architecture Copy Share Image
“Studies have shown that fathers of murdered children often die within a few years of the murder, often of heart failure. Really,… — William Landay Children Copy Share Image
“You're staring.' 'You're my wife. I'm allowed to stare.' 'Is that the rule?' 'Yes. Stare, leer, ogle, anything I want. Trust me.… — William Landay Marriage Copy Share Image
“It is a childish realization, I admit—no one worth knowing can be quite known, no one worth possessing can be quite possessed—but… — William Landay Copy Share Image
