Ten years from now I plan to be sitting here, looking out over my land. I hope I'll be writing books, but if not, I'll be on my pond fishing with my kids. I feel like the luckiest guy I know.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the importance of achieving personal fulfillment and happiness over time.
John Grisham reflects on his aspirations for the future, emphasizing the simplicity of enjoying life through writing and spending time with family. He conveys a sense of gratitude and contentment, suggesting that true wealth lies in meaningful experiences rather than material success.
In practice
In a motivational speech about work-life balance, remind the audience of Grisham's vision of a fulfilling future.
Nobody wants to read about the honest lawyer down the street who does real estate loans and wills. If you want to sell books, you have to write about the interesting lawyers - the guys who steal all the money and take off. That's the fun stuff.
Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.
An outline is crucial. It saves so much time. When you write suspense, you have to know where you're going because you have to drop little hints along the way. With the outline, I always know where the story is going. So before I ever write, I prepare an outline of 40 or 50 pages.
I seriously doubt I would ever have written the first story had I not been a lawyer. I never dreamed of being a writer. I wrote only after witnessing a trial.
Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.
I used to walk in a bookstore and see all these books on the walls. And I would say, 'Who wants to hear from me? What do I have to add to all of this?'
There's an energy and excitement when you're building a company. You have so much tail wind. You're planting new seeds. But it's also scary, because there's no safety net.
Bayern exists only to win, but to win in style, too. Winning 2-1 is not enough. We have to win 5-0.
Try first to be a man of value; success will follow.
Wealth isn't always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed.
I love what I do for a living, it's the greatest job in the world, but you have to survive an awful lot of attention that you don't truly deserve and you have to live up to your professional responsibilities and I'm always trying to balance that with what is really important.
The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.
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