Top 200 John Grisham Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “You just don’t understand men, Samantha. Looking is automatic and it’s harmless. We all look. Come on.”

— John Grisham

152. “IN THE PARLANCE of the Bible Belt, those within the faith used many words and terms to describe those outside of it. On the harsher end of the spectrum, the “lost” were referred to as heathen, unsaved, unclean, hell-bound, and just old-fashioned sinners. More polite Christians called them nonbelievers, future saints, backsliders, or – the favorite – unchurched.”

— John Grisham

153. “Did you know that some of the counties in the coalfields have the highest rates of cancer in the country?”

— John Grisham

154. “Bram v. United States, said that a statement must be free and voluntary, not extracted by any sorts of threats or violence or promises, however slight. A confession obtained from an accused who has been threatened cannot be admissible.”

— John Grisham

155. “Ten years from now I plan to be sitting here, looking out over my land. I hope I’ll be writing books, but if not, I’ll be on my pond fishing with my kids. I feel like the luckiest guy I know.”

— John Grisham

156. “One good thing about jail is that it allows you to think a lot.”

— John Grisham

157. “You spend more on fancy coffee than I do on meals. Why can’t you help the poor, the sick, the homeless?”

— John Grisham

158. “A hundred years earlier, in Hopt v. Utah, the Supreme Court ruled that a confession is not admissible if it is obtained by operating on the hopes or fears of the accused, and in doing so deprives him of the freedom of will or self-control necessary to make a voluntary statement. In 1897, the Court, in Bram v. United States, said that a statement must be free and voluntary, not extracted by any sorts of threats or violence or promises, however slight. A.”

— John Grisham

159. “He had blown the trumpet for so long that no one heard it anymore.”

— John Grisham

160. “He tried to smile at President Morgan, but he wanted to say something like: You are without a doubt the most limited politician I have ever encountered. Only in America could a moron like you make it to the top.”

— John Grisham

161. “The bloodstain expert who testified against Quincy was a former Denver homicide detective named Paul Norwood. After working crime scenes for a few years, he had decided to.”

— John Grisham

162. “But you worship money, Nate. You’re part of a culture where everything is measured by money. It’s a religion.”

— John Grisham

163. “They found Seth Hubbard in the general area where he had promised to be, though not exactly in the condition expected. He was at the end of a rope, six feet off the ground and twisting slightly in the wind.”

— John Grisham

164. “Mrs. Vanlandingham from across the street heard the commotion and came running, still holding a dish towel. She arrived just as the sheriff, Nix Gridley, wheeled into the parking lot and slid in the gravel.”

— John Grisham

165. “Mine was the only white face in the crowded restaurant, but I was coming to terms with my whiteness. No one had tried to murder me yet. No one seemed to care.”

— John Grisham

166. “I’m concerned. He witnessed something awful, and he might be in shock.”

— John Grisham

167. “Percy had never owned a ball or a glove or a bat, had never played catch with his dad, had never dreamed of beating the Yankee. In fact he’d probably never dreamed of leaving the cotton patch. That thought was almost overwhelming.”

— John Grisham

168. “The only way to improve Noose’s favorite courtroom was to burn it.”

— John Grisham

169. “Men, we don’t deserve respect. Yet. Respect is out there on the floor, just waiting for us to go get it.”

— John Grisham

170. “Such is the lunacy and unfairness of the system. Huver’s witnesses, the ones testifying on behalf of the State, are cloaked with legitimacy, as if they’ve been sanctified by the authorities. Cops, experts, even snitches who’ve been washed and cleansed and spruced up in nice clothes, all take the stand and tell lies in a coordinated effort to have my client executed. But the witnesses who know the truth, and are telling it, are discounted immediately and made to look like fools.”

— John Grisham

171. “People were classified, and often judged, by their denomination. And they were certainly condemned if they didn’t claim one.”

— John Grisham

172. “This is a game for me, and you have to admit I play it rather well.”

— John Grisham

173. “It takes just one, he says over and over. You hear that all the time in this business. One big case, and you can retire. That’s one reason lawyers do so many sleazy things, like full-color ads in the yellow pages, and billboards, and placards on city buses, and telephone solicitation. You hold your nose, ignore the stench of what you’re doing, ignore the snubs and snobbery of big-firm lawyers, because it takes only one.”

— John Grisham

174. “Nor did she like society’s way of presuming she was unhappy because she had not found the right guy.”

— John Grisham

175. “Any lawyer worth his salt knew the first offer had to be rejected.”

— John Grisham

176. “I’m in shock now. I’m not believing this, Mitch. This is like a bad dream, only much worse.” “And this is only the beginning.”

— John Grisham

177. “About a month later, Riggins changed his mind. In an interview with the police, he said he was incorrect about Ron Williamson, that in fact the man he heard doing the confessing was Glen Gore.”

— John Grisham

178. “I’ve never understood people who grind through a book they don’t really like, determined to finish it for some unknown reason.”

— John Grisham

179. “She was a good swimmer but we never used life jackets.” “It wouldn’t matter in that storm.”

— John Grisham

180. “They filed in, dressed for the day in short-sleeve shirts and cotton dresses. As they took their seats, a bailiff handed each a funeral fan – a decorative piece of cardboard glued to a stick – as if flapping it back and forth in front of their noses would bring relief from the stifling heat. Many of the spectators were already waving them.”

— John Grisham

181. “Reed will pull a Trump, file for bankruptcy and hide behind the courts for protection.”

— John Grisham

182. “You’re not ready. You’re not ready, because you’re not angry, Baxter. You must reach a point where you’re angry at your old self, your old life, your addictions. You have to hate the way you were, and when this hatred and anger consumes you, then you’ll have the determination not to go back there.”

— John Grisham

183. “It had been tested extensively in clinical trials in third-world countries;.”

— John Grisham

184. “He prayed long and hard for justice and healing, but was a bit light on mercy.”

— John Grisham

185. “She was the only girl he had ever loved. It ended abruptly when she ditched him for a football player. He carried the wounds for six years until he caught her and killed her. Only then had his pain suddenly vanished, his broken heart was healed. The score was even.”

— John Grisham

186. “As I told you before, it’s fairly easy to convict an innocent man and virtually impossible to exonerate one.”

— John Grisham

187. “You know what they say – the reason divorce is so expensive is because it’s worth it.”

— John Grisham

188. “Do we really want fair trials? No, we do not. We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case-by-case basis.”

— John Grisham

189. “You’re thinking somebody came over here, in the middle of a Category 4 hurricane, caught Nelson in the den, whacked him in the head, dragged his body outside, tried to clean up the blood, and then ran off? Seriously?”

— John Grisham

190. “Pointing the finger at Ross Bannick was a terrifying act, not because she was afraid of being wrong, but because she feared the man himself.”

— John Grisham

191. “And every defendant, regardless of how despicable the person or his crime, is entitled to a lawyer. Most laymen don’t understand this and don’t care. I don’t care either. This is my job.”

— John Grisham

192. “He was still wet with sweat and the coffee did little to cool things, but he needed it because it was an old friend and starting the day without it was unthinkable.”

— John Grisham

193. “The system reflects society. It’s not always fair, but it’s as fair as the system in New York, or Massachusetts, or California. It’s as fair as biased, emotional humans can make it.”

— John Grisham

194. “Jailhouse snitches testify every day in this country. Other civilized countries prohibit them, but not here.”

— John Grisham

195. “Since we can all agree that it’s wrong to kill, why do we allow the State to kill?”

— John Grisham

196. “There are times, many times, when I despise judges, especially blind ones and old ones.”

— John Grisham

197. “The truth was that, at the age of thirty-six, Lacy was content to live alone, to sleep in the center of the bed, to clean up only after herself, to make and spend her own money, to come and go as she pleased, to pursue her career without worrying about his, to plan her evenings with input from no one else, to cook or not to cook, and to have sole possession of the remote control.”

— John Grisham

198. “The fear of getting caught was not driven by the fear of paying the price. Rather, it was the fear of having to stop.”

— John Grisham

199. “In at least half of the DNA exonerations of innocent men and women, bad forensics have been the cornerstone of the prosecution’s evidence.”

— John Grisham

200. “Deck has reduced the Canons of Ethics to the Big Three: Fight for your client, don’t steal, try not to lie.”

— John Grisham