James Ellroy Quotes

43 quotes in 654 categories

• 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…
• I love thinking about American history, thinking about LA history. I love brooding on crime.
• 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…
• 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…
• My mother and I will continue on some level that I havent determined yet. I think my mothers a great character, and I have to…
• As a kid, I sensed history going on all around me, but the basic thrust of it didn't move me.
• As critical acclaim and response has built up, every interview I give is a chance to puncture the myth I've created about my work and…
• Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.
• Raymond Chandler once wrote that Dashiell Hammett gave murder back to the people who really committed it.
• I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.
• I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime novelist who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific what…
• I begin by assembling notes on characters. Large swaths of the plot become clear to me as I do this.
• 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 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…
• You're grounded!!!! You can't go out and prowl the L.A. streets. You've got to do something more edifying, emboldening and altogether more groovy. You gots…
• 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…
• I don't know anybody in the underworld. I make this stuff up. I don't know any criminals.
• The 1950s to me is darkness, hidden history, perversion behind most doors waiting to creep out. The 1950s to most people is kitsch and Mickey…
• 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…
• 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…

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