David Souter Quotes

Many great stories are father issues, mother issues or death.

The thing that always interests me from a storytelling point of view is how that moment of trauma, whatever the trauma is, even divorce, your dog dies, whatever it is, the consequence, in terms of people's emotional lives and the way it resonates behaviorally for a long time, is really the stuff that interests me.

I had a very distant relationship with my father. It was always just me and my mother. It was a shattering blow when she died. I was 16.

What is the value of sticking a microphone in a man's face right after he has learned of his wife's death?

I had written two or three books before my husband noticed that in every one of them a family member was missing. He suggested that it was because my father's death, when I was five, utterly changed my world. I can only suppose he is right and that this is the reason I am drawn to a narrative where someone's life is changed by loss.

Should those whose actions lead to the death or injury of a child get a free pass?

The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.

Even as a kid I remember seeing 'Minority Report' and just crying my eyes out. It was horrible what was happening to her. That was my mum!

Suicide carries in its aftermath a level of confusion and devastation that is, for the most part, beyond description.

And although I broke a lot of laws as a teenager, I straightened out immediately upon turning eighteen, when I realized the state had a legal right to execute me.

In my dreams, I kill him every night,' Robert admitted. 'A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves'.

She had lost all our memories for ever, and it was as though by dying she had robbed me of part of myself. I was losing my individuality. It was the first stage of my own death, the memories dropping off like gangrened limbs.

Killing rips the soul apart.

Certain experiences you can't survive, and afterward you don't fully exist, even if you failed to die.

I'm scared of myself. I think I'd be a bad driver. I'm scared of cars, period. I've had too many friends killed now, and I've seen too many people killed in my life when I drove across the country when I was 12. I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. If you see a few real dead bodies with brains on the pavement, it does a lot to change your attitude. It means you can get it too. I've had a lot of relatives killed. I've had a lot of dear friends killed. It's stupid. The whole activity is stupid.

There is a fascination about crime, which is understandable, but hardly anyone talks about the families of victims of violent crime and the devastation that is beyond the victim alone.

The essence of war is insanity. Destruction, death, women widowed, children orphaned, lands plundered, property destroyed, lives decimated - it's all bad.

Did you weep for the children who lost their dear loved ones and pray for the ones who don't know? Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble, and sob for the ones left below?

I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime, but I prefer not to take tea with him.

Losing my homies in a hurry, they're relocating to the cemetery.

In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,--no more. I cannot get it nearer to me.

Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.

Crime too is a form of solitude, even if one thousand get together to commit it. And it is right for me to die alone, after having lived and killed alone.

To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal.

On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy Steiner was robbery--so much life, so much to live for--yet somehow, I'm certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He'd have cried and turned and smiled if only he could have seen the book thief on her hands and knees, next to his decimated body. He'd have been glad to witness her kissing his dusty, bomb-hit lips. Yes, I know it. In the darkness of my dark-beating heart, I know. He'd have loved it all right. You see? Even death has a heart.