A battered wife is a married woman until she gets a divorce. Or until she kills the bastard.

There might have been prettier women in the room but, when she turned those babies on, fluttered her eyelashes, I was hers. It had taken me nearly fifteen years to extinguish their light. Now, when she looks at me, it's a vacuum. I had drained so much from her over the course of our marriage that every glance rips a little bit of my soul away to fill the void I had whittled within her.

Don’t turn your face away.
Once you’ve seen, you can no longer act like you don’t know.
Open your eyes to the truth. It’s all around you.
Don’t deny what the eyes to your soul have revealed to you.

Now that you know, you cannot feign ignorance.
Now that you’re aware of the problem, you cannot pretend you don’t care.
To be concerned is to be human.
To act is to care.

Nobody wants to read about the honest lawyer down the street who does real estate loans and wills. If you want to sell books, you have to write about the interesting lawyers - the guys who steal all the money and take off. That's the fun stuff.

It may seem odd that I'm here today - the unapologetic writer of popular fiction - on Faulkner's front porch about to announce the finalists for the National Book Award, which are our most prestigious literary awards.

Sistrunk looked angrily at Lettie and said, "I'm allowed to be paid for my time and expenses, plus there is the matter of the loans. When can I expect the money?"
"In due course," Jake said.
"I want it now."
"Well, you're not getting it now."
"Then I'll sue."
"Fine. I'll defend."
"And I'll preside," Judge Atlee said. "I'll give you a trial date in about four years.