Personal Injuries Quotes

“Palaver”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“Hey,” he said, “you won’t ever meet a man who likes women better than me. They’re the best thing on the planet. And I don’t just mean horizontal. Women hold the world together.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“Those are the major details. My client instructed me to report them, for whatever they might be worth. Your discretion, as always, George, is depended upon and appreciated.' He took my hand then and squared himself to seek my eyes. 'There is deep feeling between these men,' he said. 'Your client has already heard this directly from Dinnerstein, amid a predictable flurry of tears.'

And how had Robbie reacted? I preferred not to touch tissue so raw with my client. But these were the imperial moments of the criminal lawyer's life. What did humanity say and do in extremis, when a death sentence was pronounced, when a jury set a guilty man free, when a fellow found that the dearest friend of a lifetime had betrayed him? How could the impoverished gestures of daily existence accommodate such a momentous change in understanding?”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“Looking him over, I realized that Robbie Feaver had turned an important corner in his life in the last few weeks; he remained good-looking, but worry and sleeplessness and depression and poor diet had worn on him in a way likely to be permanent. They had stolen some of his glory. Yet he'd maintained the show-must-go-on spirit, and had done his best to look his part.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“When I pick, I like plays. You know. I get to ham it up. Read all the parts. Right now, we're nearly done with A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then she'll choose something." "Isn't that Shakespeare?" asked Evon. and ad bib

"You don't think there's room for Shakespeare in my common little mind?"

"I didn't mean that."

"Yes you did. Hey, listen, we've done all the classic comedies in the last year. Tartuffe. The Importance of Being Earnest. The Man Who Came to Dinner. We're having a great time. You know, sometimes she likes a break, so I'll read her a novel. She likes all the law guys." He showed her the next one they'd take up, Mitigating Circumstances, which was on a table downstairs. His mother-in-law, with her fatal touch, had brought a number of books that nei ther Rainey nor he much cared for, self-help guides, even a couple of picture books of far-off places written for juveniles.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“She made up this whole tale about me. I worked in the jail. I hated the men in there. Just the way she and most of the other girls hated the men in the club. That's why they seemed to do it. For the chance to look down on men, who want it so badly, so openly, and who're not going to get it.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“This isn't on you,' he told her.
It was nothing more than wicked coincidence. UCAs got made most often by cops or prosecutors who recognized them.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“Well, I was always chasing the Myth. Like everybody else in there. You know? The myth of love. Right? Love will make me different. Love will make me better. Love will make me dig myself."

"But it doesn't work," she said. It was the first thing she'd said for herself. Naturally, he didn't notice she wasn't speaking about him.

"At the time? Romancing, getting there? It worked. In the sack? It worked. A lot. Because I was really there. And she was really there. The whole experience is beyond bull shit, right? It's beyond everything else in my life I've fucked up. I don't have a past or a law practice or a sick wife at home. And neither does she. I can be happy. And so can she. We can make other happy. I can be something great and good to her. And she can be that way to me. And for an hour or a night, for a while, man, we can love each other for it.

"You know, sometimes, I'd just sort of wake to it, like, Here I am, sharing this experience, intimacy, I mean close this way, all ways, to a person I didn't even know existed six hours ago, and I'd ask myself, Is this so bad? Is this really so goddamn wrong? For me, you know, I'm not one of these guys who thinks sex is the only thing in life, but it was glorious. That's all. Glory us." He spelled it. "That's how I'd think of the word.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“No, really. Are you a lawyer? Can I sue somebody in jail?" "You can. It wouldn't be worth much."

"Right. So are you listening? I can't sue my boyfriend, I gotta sue my landlord."
"Because your boyfriend threw you out the window?"
"Because there weren't any screens on the window.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“The deep-cover team had chosen the apartment building because it was the biggest along Feaver's route to and from the office. Large was better, more an ominous. Living undercover, she was supposed to avoid making new acquaintances, since even the friendliest inquiries my trip you up”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“I'm going over the bridge," he told me when he looked back my way.

Up until now, I had largely seen all of this in my terms. My job was to keep Robbie out of prison and I wa delighted with my apparent success. Despite that, Robbie faced many losses: His practice. And the money that came with it. Not to mention his reputation. But now he wa going to make his first real break with everything he had If all went well with the wire, he would betray Walte Wansch in a fashion that every friend and acquaintance would deem unpardonable. The community he'd alway belonged to would be left behind. The man who had said on the first day he came to see me that he was not a rat had undoubtedly stood at the window staring not so much at the city but at what he saw of himself.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“It's really chaos and darkness out there, and when we prétend it's not, it's just The Play. We're all onstage. Saying our lines. Playing at whoever we're trying to be at the moment. A lawyer. A spouse. Even though we know in the back of our heads that life is a lot more random and messed-up than we can ud to say to ourselves.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“you can never plan well enough. Life will always outwit you.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries