Being A Lawyer Quotes & Sayings

I didn't have the equipment for the regular world of being a lawyer. I didn't have the imagination for that. I did have a funny kind of ambition, but I didn't know where to put it. — Michael Lindsay-Hogg

There are seven natural openings in the head and body. A lawyer is the only human being with eight. The extra one is a slot to store money in, should his bank be unable to hold all of it. — W.C. Fields

I've learned a lot with every character, everything from being a cop, to a lawyer to a tattoo artist. And underneath that stuff, I've been really able to find myself through the characters. It's served as a cheap form of emotional therapy. — Sarah Shahi

What was it they said about the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of crap being the bucket? — Barbara Delinsky

How do I go about being an enchantress?" Henry warmed to his subject. At thirty, he was an adviser. Maybe because he was a lawyer. "First," he said dispassionately, "hold your tongue. Don't argue with a man, especially when you know you can beat him. Smile a lot. Make him feel big. Tell him how wonderful he is, and wait on him." She smiled brilliantly and said, "Hank, I agree with everything you've said. You are the most perspicacious individual I've met in years, you are six feet five, and may I light your cigarette? How's that?" "Awful." They were friends again. — Harper Lee

Your attitude will go a long way in determining your success, your recognition, your reputation and your enjoyment in being a lawyer. — Joe Jamail

Computer science ... jobs should be way more interesting than even going to Wall Street or being a lawyer
or, I can argue, than anything but perhaps biology, and there it's just a tie. — Bill Gates

Every artist's strictly illimitable country is himself. An artist who plays that country false has committed suicide;and even a good lawyer cannot kill the dead. But a human being who's true to himself whoever himself may be is immortal;and all the atomic bombs of all the antiartists in spacetime will never civilize immortality. — E. E. Cummings

For me, being a lawyer means to help those in need. — Joe Jamail

It must be pretty cool being a lawyer," she said in awe.
"Cool" was not an adjective Jake would use. He was forced to admit to himself that it had been a long time since he viewed his profession as something other than tedious. — John Grisham

The rules of game shows limit stuff so much. I remember on 'Money From Strangers,' being in the van - not even performing - and there was a lawyer there the entire time. 'No, you can't give money for that. Yes, you can give money for that. That's a partial answer. That's a full answer.' — Kurt Braunohler

As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. — Abraham Lincoln

We have no one to go to for help. Not even a church. Anything goes, now that our President Roosevelt signed the order to get rid of us. How can he do this to his own citizens? No lawyer has the courage to defend us. Caucasian friends stay away for fear of being labeled "Jap lovers." There's not a more lonely feeling than to be banished by my own country. There's no place to go. — Kiyo Sato

You said how Michelangelo was a manic-depressive who portrayed himself as a flayed martyr in his painting. Henri Matisse gave up being a lawyer because of appendicitis. Robert Schumann only began composing after his right hand became paralyzed and ended his career as a concert pianist. (...) You talked about Nietzsche and his tertiary syphilis. Mozart and his uremia. Paul Klee and the scleroderma that shrank his joints and muscles to death. Frida Kahlo and the spina bifida that covered her legs with bleeding sores. Lord Byron and his clubfoot. The Bronte sisters and their tuberculosis. Mark Rothko and his suicide. Flannery O'Connor and her lupus. Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.

"According to Thomas Mann," Peter said, "'Great artists are great invalids. — Chuck Palahniuk

Being from a very traditional Chinese-American family, my parents believed the only options to have a successful life were to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or a business person. — Phillip Lim

Being a lawyer, even in a city as large as Chicago, is like being a citizen of a small town. I love watching the life of the town play out. You know, the rise and fall of individual lives in the entire community is just fascinating to me. — Scott Turow

Any idiot would know women's needs are simple. All we want is your basic millionaire brain surgeon criminal lawyer great dancer who pilots his own Lear Jet and owns seafront property. On the other hand, things being what they are today, most of us will settle for a guy who holds down a steady job and isn't carrying an infectious disease. — Linda Sunshine

Mom did not want me to have anything to do with playing music. Being from a middle-class Black family in that particular era, everybody wanted you to have a profession
a doctor, a lawyer, and so forth. So she sent me to school to study medicine. — Don Alias

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser - in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. — Abraham Lincoln

My father once related how he and his friend Les had come up with a way, when stalling for time in a meeting or deposition (he and Les were lawyers [Les, alive and well, still is a lawyer]), instead of saying "Um . . .," or "Uh . . .," one could say "Now . . .," a word which accomplishes two things: it serves the same stalling purpose as "Um . . .," or "Uh . . .," but instead of being dumb-sounding offputting, it creates suspense for what is coming next, whatever that might be, that which the speaker doesn't yet know. — Dave Eggers

Painting is like being a lawyer and attacking a corporation. — John Currin

Learning how to code and program computers when I was a kid was one of the best choices I made growing up. By writing code, I learned how to bring my dreams to life, how to budget, and how to build stuff. Whatever path you choose in life - being an artist, an engineer, a lawyer, a teacher, or even a politician, you will give yourself a huge leg up if you learn how to code. — Robert Glaser

Edilio is in hiding," Astrid snapped. "Edilio has to worry about being kicked out of the country. Our Edilio."
"He's got a volunteer lawyer - "
But Astrid wasn't done. "They should be putting up statues to Edilio. They should be naming schools after that boy - no, no, I'm not going to call him a boy. If he's not a man, then I'll never meet one."
Lana nodded approvingly, obviously enjoying and sharing in Astrid's outrage. — Michael Grant

I had actually studied political science in college. I had dreams of being a lawyer at one time. — Michael Kelly

I love being a lawyer more than I like writing. — David Shapiro

Over the years I have learned that creating art has made me happy. I used to be a lawyer and I'm much happier being an artist. — Nathan Sawaya

I don't think being a lawyer is more or less valuable than being a writer. — Emily Gould

Well it's been about 100 years and every attempt at a comics writers' union has failed miserably. There is, sadly, a long history of short-term thinking and self-destructive behavior among my fellow comic book creators. No matter how many horror stories they have heard they won't even go so far as to hire themselves a lawyer when they need it. It breaks my heart. I am a very proud union member of the Writers Guild. And I can't imagine my fellow comic creators being able to pull something like this together. — Brian Michael Bendis

But hereto is replied that the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile, and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case? But that is easily answered: their naming of men is but to make their picture the more lively, and not to build any history. Painting men, they cannot leave men nameless. We see we cannot play at chess but that we must give names to our chess-men; and yet, me thinks, he were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop. — Philip Sidney

I'm better at being a lawyer than I am at being a writer. — David Shapiro

You look at me and judge me. And I just want to ask, for what? I am in full control. No one has a gun to my head. Why can't this be my profession,one I have chosen for myself? I tell you prostitutes are professional in their skills and practise it like the vocation of true apostles- and why shouldn't they? What's so different from the accountant or the doctor selling his time? I ended up in this profession in the same way someone might end up being a lawyer because the couldn't get into engineering or dentistry,or because they couldn't get into medicine, or even a banker who grew up telling everyone they want to be a soccer player. They do those things because that was what was available for heir talents and their circumstances at that time. But do we pity them? No, because that's lif- — Panashe Chigumadzi

I think there's always an expectation when you're a first generation, especially a first-generation Nigerian, of sort of being a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. And so, you know, sort of my initial pursuits into the arts and that I was going to pursue film as a career didn't confuse them, but it was definitely something that they were scared about. — Terry Gross

I started out as a lawyer and came in laterally to Goldman Sachs. So I learned myself that life is unpredictable. That you really should, in terms of your career, try to be excellent at what you're doing. I think if you focus on your job, and you focus on being broad in the context of your job, the next jobs follow from that. — Lloyd Blankfein

My initial thoughts of becoming a lawyer changed in high school as I became more attracted to math and science and began talking about being an engineer. — Oliver E. Williamson

Until now, until I actually got into law class, I just never thought of it as being an interest for me, but it's really funny because now that I'm in law, I'm like 'Wow, I could be a lawyer. — Lisa Leslie

Let's put it this way: you know how we always told you that all those years of tormenting four sisters turned you into a closet sadist? Well, if you ever decide that being a lawyer isn't bringing you the kind of gratification you were hoping for, then I think I found the perfect job for you. — Elle Lothlorien

I believe that every single human being is entitled to the protection of our laws, whether they can vote or not. Whether they can speak or not. Whether they can hire a lawyer or not. Whether they have a birth certificate or not. And I think future generations will look back at this history of our country and call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave them a chance to live. — Marco Rubio

I think there is a sort of box-ticking mentality. Not just in the teaching profession. You hear about it in medicine and nursing. It's a lawyer-driven insistence on meeting prescribed standards rather than just being a good doctor. — Richard Dawkins

I never looked at being a musician any different than waking up one day and wanting to be an accountant or a lawyer. — James Vincent McMorrow

Way back in 1979, as a guest on a local TV show in Arkansas, then Hillary Rodham was quizzed about not taking her husband's last name when they got married and keeping her job as a lawyer while being first lady of the state. — Tamara Keith

"Why is it sports is the only thing white people see us being successful at? I don't want to play football," he said. "I wanna be a lawyer." "That's fine with me," I said, a little annoyed. "I've just never heard of a Negro lawyer, that's all. You've got to hear of these things before you can imagine them." "Bullshit. You gotta imagine what's never been." — Sue Monk Kidd

Running for office is similar to being a trial lawyer in a very long trial. It requires adrenaline and stamina; it requires being in shape mentally and emotionally. It's a marathon. — Kamala Harris

As important as your obligations as a doctor, lawyer or business leader will be, you are a human being first. And these human connections with spouse, with children and with friends are the most important investments you will ever make. At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child or a parent. One thing will never change. Fathers and Mothers, if you have children, they must come first. You must read to your children, you must hug your children and you must love your children ... . Your success as a family, our success as a society depends not what happens at the White House, but what happens inside YOUR house. — Barbara Bush

Being a famous singer or an international singer - that's my dream, too, but my main goal is to be a real student and be able to graduate and be a lawyer and have my own business. — Charice Pempengco

It was expected of all good middle-class Indian people to build India and, as you know, Indians - when we say, 'build India,' it was all about being an accountant, a lawyer, an engineer. So it was this idea that professionals would build the country. — Shekhar Kapur

Whenever I think I've had an uphill battle, I remember Matt Murdock. Not just because he's blind, although even with his other senses hyper-enhanced, that is a climb. And not because he's become a world famous lawyer despite his impairment. But because being Daredevil has cost him everything more than once, more than twice and yet he still suits up any time there's trouble. Because he is a man without fear.

Spider-Man — Mark Waid

I don't judge the character at all. It's a bit like being someone's defense lawyer - you have to believe in their innocence in order to defend them. — Rachel Weisz

So how does one go about proving something like this? It's not like being a lawyer, where the goal is to persuade other people; nor is it like a scientist testing a theory. This is a unique art form within the world of rational science. We are trying to craft a "poem of reason" that explains fully and clearly and satisfies the pickiest demands of logic, while at the same time giving us goosebumps. — Paul Lockhart

I got a fortune cookie that said, "To remember is to understand." I have never forgotten it. A good judge remembers what it was like to be a lawyer. A good editor remembers being a writer. A good parent remembers what it was like to be a child. — Anna Quindlen

If you are a millionaire beset by blackmailers or anyone else to whose comfort the best legal advice is essential, and have decided to put your affairs in the hands of the ablest and discreetest firm in London, you proceed through a dark and grimy entry and up a dark and grimy flight of stairs; and, having felt your way along a dark and grimy passage, you come at length to a dark and grimy door. There is plenty of dirt in other parts of Ridgeway's Inn, but nowhere is it so plentiful, so rich in alluvial deposits, as on the exterior of the offices of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow and Appleby. As you tap on the topmost of the geological strata concealing the ground-glass of the door, a sense of relief and security floods your being. For in London grubbiness is the gauge of a lawyer's respectability. — P.G. Wodehouse

Actually, acting turned out to be the perfect job for me, because I had a lot of different interests. I thought about being a priest at one point. I thought about being a teacher. I thought about being a lawyer. But I think acting is probably the best job for me. — John C. Reilly

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. — John Grisham

My generation's parents told their children, 'Become an accountant, a lawyer, or an engineer; that will give you a solid foothold in the middle class.' But these jobs are now being sent overseas. So in order to make it today, you have to do work that's hard to outsource, hard to automate. — Daniel H. Pink

I never pursued anything but acting. But as a kid, I was really interested in the Supreme Court. I wanted to to be a Supreme Court justice, but didn't want to be a lawyer. I just wanted to go straight to being a justice. — Gillian Jacobs

Being a doctor, lawyer in war-torn countries isn't easy when the infrastructure isn't there. The money, the food and education is not always accessible to achieve those dreams. — Brandon Stanton

I could see the road ahead of me. I was poor and I was going to stay poor. But I didn't particularly want money. I didn't know what I wanted. Yes, I did. I wanted someplace to hide out, someplace where one didn't have to do anything. The thought of being something didn't only appall me, it sickened me. The thought of being a lawyer or a councilman or an engineer, anything like that, seemed impossible to me. To get married, to have children, to get trapped in the family structure. To go someplace to work every day and to return. It was impossible. To do things, simple things, to be part of family picnics, Christmas, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Mother's Day ... was a man born just to endure those things and then die? I would rather be a dishwasher, return alone to a tiny room and drink myself to sleep. — Charles Bukowski

Before the immigration crisis was declared in the summer of 2014, minors seeking immigration relief were given approximately twelve months to find a lawyer to represent their case before their first court hearing. But when the crisis was declared and Obama's administration created the priority juvenile docket, that window was reduced to twenty-one days. In real and practical terms, what the creation of that priority docket meant was that the cases involving unaccompanied minors from Central America were grouped together and moved to the top of the list of pending cases in immigration court. Being moved to the top of a list, in this context, was the least desirable thing - at least from the point of view of the children involved. Basically, the priority juvenile docket implied that deportation proceedings against them were accelerated by 94 percent, and that both they and the organizations that normally provided legal representation now had much less time to build a defense. — Valeria Luiselli

I walked him to the door. "Is there anything else you want me to do? Check your mail? Water your plants?"
"My mail is being forwarded to my lawyer. And I'm watering my own plants."
"So, you feel safe in the Batcave?" The corners of his mouth curved into the hint of a smile. He leaned forward and kissed me at the base of my neck, just above my T-shirt collar.
"Sweet dreams." Before he left, he said good-night to Grandma, who was still in the kitchen.
"What a nice, polite young man," Grandma said. "And he's got an excellent package."
I went straight to her closet, found the bottle of booze, and dumped some into my cocoa. — Janet Evanovich

It had taken Nikki years to rehabilitate herself from a mortal attraction to cowboys. After being burned about a dozen times, she thought herself finally impervious - until this one flashed his irritatingly irresistible grin. She reminded herself that she was immune to his kind of rustic charm - but crystal-blue eyes and a chin dimple. Holy crap!
Why did her would-be lawyer have to be a incredibly hot cowboy? — Victoria Vane

He said he didn't need a lawyer because he was innocent. I tried not to grimace, so I just ground my teeth. When you're innocent, you really need a lawyer because of police and prosecution foul-ups. To say nothing of the average citizen's tendency to get scared and confused when being questioned by cops. — Paul Levine

[American family court] is a system that is corrupt on his best day. It is like being tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged down a gravel late at night. No one can hear your cries and complaints and it is not over until they say it's over. — Alec Baldwin

I hated being a lawyer and I wanted to like myself and like my job. — Tucker Max

Hierarchies must rise and conglomerate as they extend over fewer and larger corporations. A seat in a high-rise job is the most coveted and contested product of expanding industry. The lack of schooling, compounded with sex, color, and peculiar persuasions, now keeps most people down. Minorities organized by women, or blacks, or the unorthodox succeed at best in getting some of their members through school and into an expensive job. They claim victory when they get equal pay for equal rank. Paradoxically, these movements strengthen the idea that unequal graded work is necessary and that high-rise hierarchies are necessary to produce what an egalitarian society needs. If properly schooled, the black porter will blame himself for not being a black lawyer. At the same time, schooling generates a new intensity of frustration which ultimately can act as social dynamite. 6 — Ivan Illich

Growing up, I never gave a thought to being a writer. All I ever wanted to be was a traveler and explorer. Science-fiction allowed me to go places that were otherwise inaccessible, which is why I started reading it. I was going to be a lawyer, but I got saved. — Alan Dean Foster

My mum thought my TV and film addiction was laziness. If you're an immigrant, you know you'll never be an accepted part of society, but you hope your children will be, and you try to make them essential to the community in a practical way - being a doctor or a lawyer. Acting was beyond their comprehension. — Sanjeev Bhaskar

Well, I think that there is a connection between being a lawyer and a doctor and an actor. They kind of, in some ways, have the same appeal, I suppose. — Jeffrey Jones

I do not enjoy being away from Richmond, my friends of a lifetime, and my home ... I do not enjoy working 6 days a week and almost every night at a time when I had planned to be tapering off. There are compensations which appeal to any lawyer who is proud of his profession. The Supreme Court is an awesome place. — Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Even when I'm playing a lawyer or a doctor, I want to play a person. A human being. — J. August Richards

I think being called a she-devil by a trial lawyer is meant as a compliment. — Ann Coulter

It's a piece of cake, being a lawyer or a doctor or a computer systems analyst or an accountant. Libraries are full of books telling you how to do it. The only textbooks for private eyes are on fiction shelves, and I don't remember ever reading one that told me how to interrogate an eight-year old without feeling like I was auditioning for the Gestapo. — Val McDermid

Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer — Abraham Lincoln

She bit her tongue on the obvious, and said, "How do I go about being an enchantress?"
Henry warmed to his subject. At thirty, he was an adviser. Maybe because he was a lawyer. "First," he said dispassionately, "hold your tongue. Don't argue with a man, especially when you know you can beat him. Smile a lot. Make him feel big. Tell him how wonderful he is, and wait on him."
She smiled brilliantly and said, "Hank, I agree with everything you've said. You are the most perspicacious individual I've met in years, you are six feet five, and may I light your cigarette? How's that?"
"Awful."
They were friends again. (Chapter 1) — Harper Lee

Mom has no idea that I want to go to Our Lady of Sorrows just to investigate a haunting.
I have a gut feeling I'm going to be an outsider at this school, but that's the price I pay for being a psychic investigator. Like my Master Psychic's Handbook says, Being a psychic isn't a normal career, like being a doctor or a lawyer. At some point, there may be a price to pay for such an unusual, misunderstood lifestyle. — Jennifer Allison

Being a lawyer in New York sucks because you're working eighty, sometimes a hundred hours a week. — David Steinberg

(My greatest human flaw and strength, not surprisingly, is that I can always imagine anything
a marriage, a conversation, a government
as being different from how it is, a trait that might make one a top-notch trial lawyer or novelist or realtor, but that also seems to produce a somewhat less than reliable and morally feasible human being.) — Richard Ford

You can get a lawyer with two months off or a New York socialite who wants to play at being Lewis and Clark and put them up there, but Everest is still in charge; it can still kick butt. — Jon Krakauer

One of the things I was taught in law school is that I'd never be able to think the same again - that being a lawyer is something that's part of who I am as an individual now. — Anita Hill

Bob Goff, the craziest lawyer, love activist, world-changer I know, and the delightful author of Love Does, says this: The world can make you think that love can be picked up at a garage sale or enveloped in a Hallmark card. But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It's a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright. . . . The brand of love Jesus offers is . . . more about presence than undertaking a project. It's a brand of love that doesn't just think about good things, or agree with them, or talk about them . . . Love does.1 — Lysa TerKeurst

I think that one of the primary roles of an attorney, and certainly we try to teach it here to our students, is that you counsel compliance with the law. The lawyer, more than simply being a mouthpiece for the client and advocating at whatever cost the client's interest, is also an officer of the court in questions that appear before the court. — Viet D. Dinh

But I think half the battle is figuring out what works for you, and I am much better at being a mother than I ever would have been as a lawyer. I sometimes wonder if it is just me, or if there are other women who figure out where they are supposed to be by going nowhere. - My Sister's Keeper — Jodi Picoult

Gandhi is an example of a man who grew from being self-centered as he was learning to become a lawyer in England, to becoming more family- and social oriented in South-Africa, where he led a reformation of Indian rights, to becoming determined in helping his nation recover from British rule at which he succeeded in the end with the help of a great many people. At the end of his life Gandhi was increasingly focused on a larger picture, encasing the whole world in his vision of a peaceful future. — Gudjon Bergmann

5:3 Do Not Wither within Your Area of Expertise
...
But the lawyer must not allow the client to make a decision that the lawyer believes is wrong without a forceful and effective presentation by the lawyer of his or her position on the subject. When the matter is within the sphere of the lawyer's expertise, the lawyer must not permit the fear of being wrong to devour the lawyer's obligation to urge a course of action which the lawyer believes to be the best. (p.58) — Peter Siviglia

I grinned at him. 'Jealous?'
He grinned right back. 'That's a trick question. If I say yes you'll accuse me of being paranoid and unreasonable, and if I say no you'll make some defensive crack about how I don't think you're worth getting jealous over.'
This is what I got for hooking up with a lawyer. — Carrie Vaughn

If you are accused of being associated with terrorism, which could mean you are an Arab- American and you've sent e-mails to a relative in the Middle East, you should get your day in court, and I think you should get a lawyer and a trial, and I think most Americans agree to that. — Rand Paul

Everyone wants to be paid well - I know that I certainly do. But there are lots of other satisfactions that we get from our work. To feel needed. To feel accomplishment. To believe that our work matters. Being a lawyer gives you a rare chance to experience that kind of success. — Jeffrey Toobin

Sometimes, when I don't think about it, I think I have just totally escaped the Bad Thing, and that I am going to be able to lead a Normal and Productive Life as a lawyer or something here on planet Trillaphon, once I get so I can read again.
( ... ) Being far away sort of helps with respect to the Bad Thing. Except that is just highly silly when you think about what I said before concerning the fact that the Bad Thing is really — David Foster Wallace

Lawyers are alright, I guess - but it doesn't appeal to me", I said. "I mean they're alright if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides, even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is you wouldn't. — J.D. Salinger

I fired a bunch of people and kind of went back to my roots. I fired my agent - I had this big, fancy agent and a big fancy manager and a big fancy lawyer - and I went back to my first agent and said, "I want to go back to just being an actor." — Matthew Lillard