William Landay Quotations

I am interested in computers and technology, and art, photography, and design.

Crime and legal stories, broadly speaking, are just where my interest happens to lie.

You can write a great book and be ignored. Literary history is full of classics that were under-appreciated in their own time.

Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.

I'm a bit of a tech geek myself.

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.

Well, I outline fanatically. I am a long thinker and a slow writer, though I am trying to get faster.

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.

I can't say that I ever actually decided to become a writer. It kind of snuck up on me.

I love sports, as all Bostonians seem to. I love books and movies, as all writers seem to.

I don't ever write with a particular audience in mind. I just write books that please me.

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.

The rest-the vast majority, tens of thousands of days-are unremarkable, repetitive, even monotonous. We glide through them then instantly forget them. We tend not to think about this arithmetic when we look back on our lives. We remember the handful of Big Days and throw away the rest. We organize our long, shapeless lives into tidy little stories...But our lives are mostly made up of junk, of ordinary, forgettable days, and 'The End' is never the end.

There is no absolute beginning to any story, after all. There is only the moment you begin watching.

We move through time like a man in a rowboat, looking back even as we move forward.

Predisposition is not predestination.

the act does not create guilt unless the mind is also guilty.

Damage hardens us all. It will harden you too, when it finds you—and it will find you

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.

no one worth knowing can be quite known, no one worth possessing can be quite possessed

At some point as adults we cease to be our parents' children and we become our children's parents instead.

You know, being confident isn't the same as being right.

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.

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.

There are many more ways to be attractive than to be beautiful.

The interior of a teenager’s mind is an endless war between Stupid and Clever.