William Gaddis

How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.

It is a naked city. Faith is not pampered, nor hope encouraged; there is no place to lay one’s exhaustion: but instead pinnacles skewer it undisguised against vacancy.

He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correctly, regarded as “rank presumption”.

How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible.

If it is not beautiful for someone, it does not exist.

Get a black suit and just freeload, problem it’s too God damned late now even to be any of the things I never wanted to be.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

My focus now is to be the best justice I can be.

The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for months or years. A competent attorney can delay one even longer.

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

Are you threatening me? If you so much as touch me I’ll have you arrested!

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.