"I often heard about his cases and I often sat in on his trials. In the late 1960s when I was growing up I wanted to be a crusader like him but I didn't want to wear a suit and commute"
About this Quote
The late 1960s matters here. It was an era that sold crusading as a viable identity - civil rights lawyers, antiwar organizers, public-intellectual attorneys becoming folk heroes. Growing up around “cases” and “trials” suggests proximity to that world, maybe through a parent or mentor, and it implies that justice was not theoretical; it was procedural, public, adversarial. Yet the line also reveals the seed of the writer’s sensibility: an attraction to moral struggle paired with an allergy to institutional life.
Subtextually, Guterson is describing the pivot from law to literature without naming it. He wants impact, narrative, and the feeling of standing for something, but he refuses the professional pipeline that legitimizes it. The suit and commute aren’t just inconveniences; they’re symbols of joining the very system a “crusader” is supposed to challenge. The neat trick is how the sentence honors the idealism while admitting the vanity and discomfort underneath it - the private reasons people choose their public virtues.
Quote Details
| Topic | Career |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Guterson, David. (2026, January 17). I often heard about his cases and I often sat in on his trials. In the late 1960s when I was growing up I wanted to be a crusader like him but I didn't want to wear a suit and commute. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-often-heard-about-his-cases-and-i-often-sat-in-60541/
Chicago Style
Guterson, David. "I often heard about his cases and I often sat in on his trials. In the late 1960s when I was growing up I wanted to be a crusader like him but I didn't want to wear a suit and commute." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-often-heard-about-his-cases-and-i-often-sat-in-60541/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I often heard about his cases and I often sat in on his trials. In the late 1960s when I was growing up I wanted to be a crusader like him but I didn't want to wear a suit and commute." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-often-heard-about-his-cases-and-i-often-sat-in-60541/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2026.
