I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime novelist who ever lived. I am to the crime novel… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
I don't know anybody in the underworld. I make this stuff up. I don't know any criminals. — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
I love thinking about American history, thinking about LA history. I love brooding on crime. — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
When I look at Perfidia, I think, "That's a Pulitzer Prize winner. That's a National Book Award winner." It's not going to… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
As much as I transferred my mother to Elizabeth Shore of The Black Dahlia, as much as her dad mutated into an… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
Well, the clues are there. They always are. Which is why when crimes are solved decades after the fact, it's obvious that… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
The wildest ride in modern crime novel exoticum. A novel so steeped in milieu that it feels as if you've blasted to… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
I think I'm out of crime fiction now, and I think the dividing line is American Tabloid. — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose. — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
“Fear and I played peek-a-boo - it always seemed to grab my balls and twist just when it felt like something inside me could… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
My father actually went to college, and my mother went to nursing school, so, you know. I wouldn't... They were actually too square and… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
I've created a narrative of the world. I live in the world - tenuously, most times. I've avoided the digital world. — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
Some men get the world, some men get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona. You're in with the former, but my God I don't… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
In the time just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when Perfidia opens, we were pre-psychologized. There were no concepts of identity, no politics… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
“It all came down to money - the great equalizer and common denominator.” — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies. — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
“I didn't care who we were. I required no consummation. I knew that whoever we were and whatever we had would never stop.” — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
Where’s your sketch pad?” I asked. … “I gave that up,” Kay said. “I wasn’t very good, so I changed my major.” “To what?”… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime novelist who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
I don't want to recover from writing this book [The Onion]. I feel very poised. I feel like I'm with my mother for the… — James Ellroy Copy Share Image
