It started with a funny feeling in the bottoms of my feet. Something is going to happen. Perhaps an earthquake. That's what it feels like. But perhaps terrorists on the way. Whatever it is, something's coming.

It is precisely by making the effort to walk in someone else's shoes, to enter someone else's mind and look out through her eyes, that human beings begin to truly understand each other. I believe that goodwill for all sentient beings is the right path for us all, and goodwill comes from understanding.

Grisham posed his idea of plot-driven fiction as a distinction from "literature", but he might be surprised to learn that his idea has precedents among the highest of brows: in what is generally considered the first work of literary criticism, The Poetics , Aristotle argued that plot ( mythos ) is superior to every other element of tragedy, which he considered the highest form of literary art. To Aristotle, action is most important, and the writer's arrangement of incidents leads to the most vital effects of tragedy.

That we are shattered creatures, / our sacred texts assure us, but not why