American novelist (1960- )
As a lawyer, I was paid to write persuasively. I was paid to take the same set of facts the other side had and make you believe that my version of it was true, while the other side was doing the exact same thing.
DAVID BALDACCI
interview, The Strand
It had been so long since we were a family that I had almost forgotten the joy that came with having one. All the small and large moments, many that I had taken for granted while they were occuring, no doubt bolstered by the certainty that there would be many more. Yet such endearing and memorable engagements in life are promised to no one. They come and go and one has to be aware that there is no assurance they will ever come again.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Finisher
It would actually constitute more than a miracle, he realized. It would take divine intervention plus luck, plus some unknown element of cosmic wizardry.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
Love is like a good piece of wood: It just gets stronger and stronger as the years go by.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
Today might not be so good. But tomorrow, you got another chance to get it right.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
Arrogant people habitually overestimated their own abilities and underestimated everyone else's.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
I remember the Sherlock Holmes stories where he and Watson would go to the countryside. Watson would see the beautiful cottages and Holmes would see a harbinger of crime. He went on to say that in London there are at least many police officers that would be nearby compared to the countryside where there are miles and miles from local law enforcement. If there is a police force it is very small which allows people to get away with a lot.
DAVID BALDACCI
interview, Crime Spree Magazine, November 14, 2017
She had spent considerable time writing the letter. The younger generation, with all of its tweets and Facebook and cryptic texts and emails where no actual language or grammar were involved, would never have understood taking the time.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Forgotten
Shortly before he died, Tom's father had asked his son to finish something that, according to legend, Twain never had. As his father told it, Mark Twain, who probably traveled more than any man of his time, during the latter part of his life, his so-called dark years. Apparently he'd wanted to see some good in the world amid all the tragedy he and his family had suffered. He'd supposedly taken extensive notes about the trip but for some reason had never distilled them into a story. That's What Tom's father had asked him to do: take the train ride, write the story, finish what Twain never had, and do the Langdon side of the family proud.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
People like to talk about other people's misery; it makes them feel their own life is somehow better when it usually isn't.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
Very few people knew I was writing during those years: my mom and dad, my brother and sister, my wife. That was it. Not even my in-laws knew. It was a very personal thing for me I was pursuing. My wife obviously was very instrumental. We had a family, and she took on more of the labor of that, allowing me to write at night, early in the morning, and on the weekends. My mom and dad obviously instilled the love of reading in all three of us siblings; we went to the library every weekend and checked out lots of books. But for my love of books, I wouldn’t have ended up being a writer. But I could open a book and explore different parts of the world without ever leaving the city where I grew up. It was a fascinating thing, and I became mesmerized by the power of language. That’s really what started it for me.
DAVID BALDACCI
interview, The Strand
After all, there were bills to pay, shopping to do, kids to raise, and sports to watch, so who had time for anything else?
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
Five hundred and thirty-five members of Congress plied their trade near here in various buildings named after long-dead politicians. They, in turn, were surrounded by an army of lobbyists flush with cash who worked relentlessly to convince the elected officials of the unassailable righteousness of their causes. Such was democracy.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Innocent
I guess, at least consciously I was always wanting to do stories, when I was a kid. I loved telling stories orally, then I started writing them down in a little blank page-book my mom bought me when I was in elementary school. And I just loved writing stuff down and coming up with these big yarns. I never thought about having a career as a writer back then, but once I got into high school and college I started focusing on writing short stories. I loved reading short stories in high school and college, and I liked writing them. I wrote a dozen or so over the course of a number of years. And at that point, tried to get published. There’s very little market for short stories in the United States any more.
DAVID BALDACCI
interview, The Strand
It's not getting from A to B. It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
The first person to see the video, a computer programmer in Houston, was stunned. He e-mailed the file to a list of twenty friends on his share list. The next person to view it seconds later lived in France and suffered from insomnia. In tears, she sent it to fifty friends. The third viewer was from South Africa and was so incensed at what he'd seen that he phoned the BBC and then did an e-mail blast to eight hundred of his "closest" mates on the Web. A teenage girl in Norway watched the video in horror and then forwarded it to every person she knew. The next thousand people to view it lived in nineteen different countries and shared it with thirty friends each, and they with dozens each. What had started as a digital raindrop in the Internet ocean quickly exploded int a pixel-and-byte tsunami the size of a continent.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
Woe be to the wug who forgets that destroying one part of a thing does not equal victory.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Finisher
You know what kind of person it takes to run for President? Not normal. They could start out okay, but by the time they reach that level they've sold their soul to the devil so many times and stomped the guts out of enough people that they are definitely not like you and me, not even close.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
All you have to do is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
Confidence is one thing, disrespect is quite another.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Simple Truth