James Ellroy

I want to see these bad, bad, bad, bad men come to grips with their humanity.

— James Ellroy

It was easy not to think of my future; I didn't have one.

— James Ellroy

I'm clenched down, I'm locked in on it, which is my general approach to life.

— James Ellroy

Closure is a preposterous concept worthy of the worst aspects of American daytime TV.

— James Ellroy

I needed to address that I've had some profound moral shifts in my own life.

— James Ellroy

I wanted things. Whatever it cost and whatever it took, I would do it. And that's it.

— James Ellroy

L.A.: Come on vacation, go home on probation.

— James Ellroy

It's all sex for me. Politics is sex. Race is sex. It's the novel. It's the novel!

— James Ellroy

I drank, I used drugs, I broke into houses, sniffed women's undergarments. I ate Benzedrex inhalers, jacked off for 18 hours at…

— James Ellroy

As a kid, I sensed history going on all around me, but the basic thrust of it didn't move me.

— James Ellroy

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

— James Ellroy

I'm trying to be less bombastic. I love my books. I think I've done things nobody else has done.

— James Ellroy

[Raymond] Chandler, I reread him, and there's a lot of bad writing there. I don't think he knew much about people.

— James Ellroy

“Fear and I played peek-a-boo - it always seemed to grab my balls and twist just when it felt like something inside…

— James Ellroy

“It's time to demythologise an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad…

— James Ellroy

I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.

— James Ellroy

I don't feel in any way obligated to remain current with the culture. I feel no social obligation whatsoever. I trust my…

— James Ellroy

I was in L.A. in '08. It was a cold Saturday night. I had spread my phone number out to a score…

— James Ellroy

“The left one's the hospital, the right one's death. The right one steals your life while the left steals your breath. These…

— James Ellroy

I kept saying, "Stop me now. It's going to my head." I got some photos. Really, I did! It's not my noblest…

— James Ellroy

America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our…

— James Ellroy

For a much lauded writer, I'm not terribly self-absorbed. In social situations, which are difficult for me - I mean, this is…

— James Ellroy

I always cringe when a male friend of mine, who's very fixated on women, puts "compatibility" at the top of his list…

— James Ellroy

The lunatic populism that preceded the Pearl Harbor bombing is astonishing in its permutations, its crisscrossings. Guys like [Catholic priest and controversial…

— James Ellroy

“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.…

— James Ellroy

“The spook pimp was up. The spook pimp was de-O’d and revived. He bossed his whores around. He made his whores strip.…

— James Ellroy

“Bissell fingered his napkin. "I do, Mr. Boyd. And I know how generous Mr. Hoffa, Mr. Marcello and a few other Italian…

— James Ellroy

“My dad was always snoozing on the couch, like Dagwood Bumstead. He was a lazy motherfucker. God bless him. He was always…

— James Ellroy

“Achtung, motherfuckers. And good afternoon. I'm James Ellroy; the death dog with the hog log, the white knight of the far right,…

— James Ellroy

“He was about to pocket a list of local sanitariums when he heard "Traitor," and saw Mickey and Herman Gerstein standing a…

— James Ellroy

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

“Don't make a career out of underestimating me." — Claire de Haven”

— James Ellroy

“It all came down to money - the great equalizer and common denominator.”

— James Ellroy

How did I change my life? I wanted things. I wanted women and I wanted to write books.

— James Ellroy

Cats gotta scratch. Dogs gotta bite. I gotta write.

— James Ellroy

I haven't been to a movie in a year and a half.

— James Ellroy

Tell me anything. Tell me everything. Revoke our time apart. Love me fierce in danger.

— James Ellroy

“He used to pimp and pull shakedowns. Now he rode shotgun to History.”

— James Ellroy

Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.

— James Ellroy

There's none with me, although you've seen me before - I'm outrageous.

— James Ellroy