William Landay
Crime and legal stories, broadly speaking, are just where my interest happens to lie.Collection: Legal
I am interested in computers and technology, and art, photography, and design.Collection: Computers
Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.Collection: Good
The interior of a teenager’s mind is an endless war between Stupid and Clever.Collection: Clever
An emotion is a thought, yes, an idea, but it is also a sensation, an ache in your body. Desire, love, hate, fear, repulsion - you feel these things in your muscle and bones, not just in your mind.Collection: Hate
Predisposition is not predestination.Collection: Predestination
Genes are not simple triggers. No one is hardwired to commit murder or any other crime. Our actions are always the result of stupendously complex gene-environment interactions, and environment is likely to remain the more important influence by far.Collection: Simple
But sometimes you can't figure everything out because you can't ever really understand other people. You can't understand why they do what they do. You just have to accept a little mystery, Ben. People are mysterious, the world is mysterious. You can't know everything. You're not supposed to. This isn't a history book. It's just the world. It's a messy place.Collection: Book
no one worth knowing can be quite known, no one worth possessing can be quite possessedCollection: Knowing
You know, being confident isn't the same as being right.Collection: Be Confident
There are many more ways to be attractive than to be beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
You can write a great book and be ignored. Literary history is full of classics that were under-appreciated in their own time.Collection: Book
Damage hardens us all. It will harden you too, when it finds you—and it will find youCollection: Damage
Well, I outline fanatically. I am a long thinker and a slow writer, though I am trying to get faster.Collection: Long
the act does not create guilt unless the mind is also guilty.Collection: Mind
There is no absolute beginning to any story, after all. There is only the moment you begin watching.Collection: Stories
We move through time like a man in a rowboat, looking back even as we move forward.Collection: Moving
When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try to write a novel. To be clear: I did not decide to become a novelist. Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I could actually earn a living as a professional novelist.Collection: Writing
At some point as adults we cease to be our parents' children and we become our children's parents instead.Collection: Children
I'm a bit of a tech geek myself.Collection: Geek
I can't say that I ever actually decided to become a writer. It kind of snuck up on me.Collection: Kind
Probably careful plotting reflects my personality. I am meticulous by nature. I can't imagine speed-writing anything that happens to pop into my head.Collection: Writing
I don't ever write with a particular audience in mind. I just write books that please me.Collection: Book
I love sports, as all Bostonians seem to. I love books and movies, as all writers seem to.Collection: Sports