American novelist (1960- )
The U.S. overall has an excellent record when it comes to treatment of POWs and persons listed as foreign combatants, but the longer the war against terrorism goes on, the more tempting it is for our guys to stoop to the other side's level. After all, they're only human, and they might come to view the person sitting across from them as someone not worthy of any rights at all.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Camel Club
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
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
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
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
Well, you live your life the way you want, I live mine the way I want. We see who makes it farther.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Simple Truth
Life doesn't work that way. You can do everything perfectly. Do everything you think you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill every expectation that other people may have. And you still won't get the results you think you deserve. Life is crazy and maddening and often makes no sense.
DAVID BALDACCI
One Summer
He thanked God for allowing him to live. So many hours of swimming, and then being picked up by the boat. In the vastness of the Gulf, what were the odds of that without divine intervention? The sharks had also miraculously left him alone. He had to attribute that to his prayers as well.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Forgotten
I want you to know that if I could've stayed with you I would have. I fought as hard as I could. I will never understand why I had to be taken from you so soon, but I have accepted it. Yet I want you to know that there is nothing more important to me than you. I loved you from the moment I saw you. And the happiest day of my life was when you agreed to share your life with mine. I promised that I would always be there for you. And my love for you is so strong that even though I won't be there physically, I will be there in every other way. I will watch over you. I will be there if you need to talk. I will never stop loving you. Not even death is powerful enough to overcome my feelings for you. My love for you, Lizzie, is stronger than anything.
DAVID BALDACCI
One Summer
It’s a crazy kind of schedule but five or six years ago, I had an idea for a book and wrote it rather quickly. All of a sudden I found that two books a year, spring and fall, was something I could reasonably do. I’m always chasing the next story.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Telegraph, November 16, 2015
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
I was with Bobby Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel. I was a rookie cop in L.A. when RFK came through. I just stood there and watched a man who should have gone on to be president bleed to death on the floor. Every day since then I've wondered what I could have done differently.
DAVID BALDACCI
Split Second
People with power and means would always take advantage of those without them.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Forgotten
I started writing screenplays, writing scripts for films. Got an agent in L.A., and actually had some producers interested in my work. I’d always wanted to write a novel, and an idea hit me in the early 90s about the president and the burglar and all of that. I spent three years writing at night while I was practicing law, and I thought it was a good story. I sent it out to agents, and my life changed. I think when I was in high school, trying to get short stories published, is when I first had this idea that maybe I could be a writer. But even back then I thought, this is only a hobby, a sideline; you’re gonna have to get a real job in life, and this is something you’ll do at night or early in the morning and maybe sell a story here and there and that’ll be pretty much your career.
DAVID BALDACCI
interview, The Strand
He earned a national reputation managing large political campaigns, turning them into media-driven extravaganzas with emphasis on sound bites and perception over any kind of substance, and his win rate was astonishingly high. That probably said more for the gullibility of the modern voter than the high standards of the modern candidate.
DAVID BALDACCI
Split Second
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
Love is like a good piece of wood: It just gets stronger and stronger as the years go by.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
Things sometimes did not work out. Even if you wanted them to more than anything else. You couldn’t will someone to love you back. You had to move on.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
That was the problem with an eight-figure gorilla of a client. It took all of your time and attention. Old clients dried up and died away. New clients were not cultivated. His complacency had come back to bite him right in the ass.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power