American novelist (1960- )
People with power and means would always take advantage of those without them.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Forgotten
Woe be to the wug who forgets that destroying one part of a thing does not equal victory.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Finisher
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
It's my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less where they're going. For them it's the journey itself and the people they meet along the way. You see, at every stop this train makes, a little bit of America, a little bit of your country, gets on and says hello.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
Sometimes inspiration hits in the middle of the night and I want to get up and work on it. It’s that spark of immediacy. For me, it’s a tap which is on all the time.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Telegraph, November 16, 2015
Thanks for being honest about your dishonesty.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Innocent
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
For once in a long time, he felt good. No worries, just possibilities. Endless possibilities.
DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
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
Life is what it is, Will. You take it as it comes.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Innocent
She noticed a shadow of movement behind her, but had no chance to feel alarmed about it. That was Betsy Puller Simon's last memory.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Forgotten
God made all of us, Josh. We all his children. Ain't no good trying to divide us all up. I seen plenty of white folk beaten up in prison. Evil comes in all forms, all colors. Bible says so. I ain't judging nobody except on themselves. Only way to do it.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Simple Truth
Ignorance and intolerance to be like commas, because you often found them in pairs, and almost never did you find one, ignorance, without its evil twin, intolerance.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Camel Club
At this prison the doors are inches thick, steel; once factory smooth, they now carry multiple dents. Imprints of human faces, knees, elbows, teeth, residue of blood are harvested large on their gray surface. Prison hieroglyphics: pain, fear, death, all permanently recorded here, at least until a new slab of metal arrives.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Simple Truth
He was accustomed to seeing without benefit of light, becoming, over the years, an expert of sorts. The years in prison had also boosted the acuity of his hearing such that he could almost hear someone thinking. You did both a lot in prison: listening and thinking.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Simple Truth
They were not rich. They were not powerful. They were truly the forgotten.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Forgotten
Listening to a sermonizer who above all loves to hear himself sermonize is about as much fun as having your toes sheared off.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Finisher
There's no greater chaos than when swift, violent death knocks on the door of an unsuspecting crowd.
DAVID BALDACCI
Split Second
Why are trains so popular at Christmas? People get on to meet their country over the holidays.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
I love my country. It is a place of beauty. The people there are good. They like to work hard. They love their freedoms. But that does not mean that every leader we have is a good one who deserves the respect of the people. So sometimes when you do not follow along blindly things happen to you.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Forgotten