James Ellroy

“I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.”

“There's a kid or some kids somewhere. I'll never know them. They're particle-puzzle-cubing right now. They might be mini-misanthropes from Moosefart, Montana. They might be demi-dystopians from Dogdick, Delaware. They dig my demonic dramas. The metaphysic maims them. They grasp the gravity. They'll duke it out with their demons. They'll serve a surfeit of survival skills. They won't be chronologically crucified.They'll shore up my shit. They'll radically revise it. They'll pass it along.”

“I have a very intense marriage.”

“To me, there's nothing on earth other than women. It's why I get out of bed every morning.”

“Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist.”

“Every one of my books is written from the viewpoint of cops, with the exception of my book Killer on the Road, which is written from the viewpoint of a serial killer.”

“I've been tremendously moved by a bunch of odd books. Ross McDonald is very important to me. I love the Lew Archer books.”

“I don't know anybody in the underworld. I make this stuff up. I don't know any criminals.”

“When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.”

“I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.”

“Some of them screamed. Some of them wept. Some of them grinned like LSD was a blast. A case officer said John Stanton hatched the idea - lets flood Cuba with this shit before we invade. Langley co-signed the brainstorm. Langley embellished it: Let's induce mass hallucinations and stage the second coming of Christ!!!! Langley found some suicidal actors. Langley dolled them up to look like J.C. Langley had them set to pre-invade Cuba concurrent with the dope saturation. Peter howled. The case officer said, 'It's not funny.' A drug-zorched peon whipped out his wang and jacked off.”

“I am the most well-adjusted human being I know. I started out this investigation as a very happy man with a great career. I've got the life people dream about: I am rich, I am famous, I've got a fabulous marriage to an absolutely, spell-bindingly brilliant woman.”

“I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.”

“As much as I transferred my mother to Elizabeth Shore of The Black Dahlia, as much as her dad mutated into an obsession with crime in general, well, I have thought about other things throughout the years.”

“I was a WASP kid going to a high school that was 99 percent Jewish and I wanted attention and I wanted to make a spectacle of myself because I couldn't stand to be ignored.”

“I put on such a good show, the story is outrageous, and people don't want to hear that I'm basically a reasonable human being. As long as it continues to get me print, I'll continue to perform in an exuberant manner.”

“Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.”

“My mother and I will continue on some level that I haven't determined yet. I think my mother's a great character, and I have to say that giving my mother to the world has to be the biggest thrill of my writing career.”

“I am conservative by temperament. I disapprove of criminal activity. I am very solidly and markedly on the side of authority. The truth is I would rather err on the side of too much authority than too little.”

“The truth of the matter is, you lose a parent to murder when you're 10 years old, and in fact at the time of the murder you hate your lost parent, my mother in my case.”