Nelson DeMille Quotes

Life doesn't always give us what we are expecting.

I think we are drawn to anti-heroes because that is what most of us are most of the time and it is good to see that we are heroic.

I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people.

We lie to ourselves and try to escape that bitter reality by saying that the world is divided into good guys and bad guys, and that we're the good guys. We condemn people as evil to reassure us that we're not like them. If there's to be any hope of preventing these things from happening again, we have to look at the reality. That any act of evil in our history was committed by human beings like us. That, very often, we're all implicated in it.

I think that no relationship goes completely according to plan or the way you wished it had.

You think that your life is going to be one way, and then, for various reasons or whatever, it doesn't work out.

The interesting thing about life is, there is what you think is going to happen, and what actually happens.

I've always had a fascination with vampires. It's not that I'm exactly fascinated with the dark side. It's the human struggle with it. How we deal with those two aspects of who we are. We all have those elements.

I think we all have the capacity of evil in us.

The good thing about people underestimating models is that the bar is set so low, you tend to impress people more easily.

It would be lovely if it was all Right vs. Wrong, Good overcomes Evil - I think most Americans, going about their daily lives, fool themselves into thinking that that's how our little world works, but it just isn't so.

I'm not sure that it's possible to write a novel about people who don't transgress or stumble, people who don't surprise themselves with the things they do, people who can explain all their actions with perfect logical consistency. At least it's not possible for me to write that sort of novel.

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.

If we are completely honest with ourselves, everyone has a dark side to their personalities.

As human beings, we are all flawed. And just like there is a good side, there is also a bad side waiting to find its way out.

I try to find what makes even the worst, most despicable character sympathetic at his or her core.

Delusion is not good; better to be realistic and then surprise yourself if you're lucky.

People who meet me as an adult are often surprised that I'm alive and have never been in prison or rehab. Sometimes they're disappointed I'm not cooler.

… experience should teach us that it is always the unexpected that does occur!

Ambition is the Subtlest Beast of the Intellectual and Moral Field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.

In the end, I did not feel any cleaner than he was … I pretended once again now and then that [Senator Joseph] McCarthy was not a serious man; but I always knew that the devil in me and the larger devil in him were very consequential figures indeed

We should often blush for our very best actions, if the world did but see all the motives upon which they were done.

The thing about the future is that it never feels the way we thought it would.

Everybody believes they can win now. That's why there are so many upsets in the Grand Slams.

I think my characters are all fairly fundamentally decent, even if they have negative characteristics.