62 pages 2 hours read

Jonathan Harr

A Civil Action

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1995

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Important Quotes

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“What does it take to get you mad?” 


( “The Trial”, Page 311)

Despite Jan’s obsessiveness and passion, he falters when Riley fails to break on the stand. Of all the emotions that drive him, anger is the one that he has not made much use of, and it may be exactly what is needed. This is at odds with the view that the law is a dispassionate, practical matter between parties. Anger is used to make people react, and to wound. 

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“In the enclosed, ritualistic world of the courtroom, where judges wore black robes, witnesses were sworn to tell the truth, and panels of silent strangers held one’s fate in their hands, reality was often a mere shadowland.” 


( “The Trial”, Page 315)

What is real in court is less important than what can be shown to be real. The winner of a case may be the one who demonstrates a false version of events but does so more convincingly than the party in possession of the actual truth. 

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"But money was the least of Schlichtmann's worries. Oddly, for a man of lavish tastes, he didn't care that much about money. He was much more frightened of having staked too much of himself on this one case. He was afraid that if he lost it—if he'd been that wrong–he would lose something of far greater value than money. That in some mysterious way, all the confidence he had in himself, his ambition and his talent, would drain away. He had a vision of himself sitting on a park bench, his hand-tailored suits stuffed into his own green plastic trash bags.”


(“Boston: July 1986”, Page 6)

Schlichtmann’s appearance is important to him, but he is never sure why. The case has now come to define him in his entirety—his image, his future, his self-worth, and his sense of past accomplishments all hinge on the Woburn case. It raises the question of whether his self-confidence is ever real, or whether it is contingent on the moment’s victory.