James Ellroy Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  James Ellroy

  Crime, Screws, Knows

  55 Copy quote

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

  James Ellroy

  Dog, Writing, Cat

  17 Copy quote

• Some people don’t respond to civility.

  James Ellroy

  People, Civility

  James Ellroy (2011). “The Black Dahlia”, p.63, Random House

  11 Copy quote

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

  James Ellroy

  Home, Vacation, Los Angeles

  James Ellroy, Los Angeles Police Museum (2015). “LAPD '53”, p.130, Abrams

  18 Copy quote

• I learn things late-and only the hard way.

  James Ellroy

  Way, Late, Hard Way

  15 Copy quote

• I love thinking about American history, thinking about LA history. I love brooding on crime.

  James Ellroy

  Thinking, Crime, American History

  14 Copy quote

• Dead people belong to the live people who claim them most obsessively.

  James Ellroy

  People, Claims, Dead People

  "My Dark Places". Book by James Ellroy, 1996.

  6 Copy quote

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

  James Ellroy

  Fierce, Time Apart, Danger

  James Ellroy (1997). “White Jazz”, Ballantine Books

  19 Copy quote

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

  James Ellroy

  Tvs, Closure, Aspect

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview with John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

  6 Copy quote

• America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.

  James Ellroy

  Regret, Fall, America

  James Ellroy (2011). “American Tabloid: Underworld USA (1)”, p.3, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• I always cringe when a male friend of mine, who's very fixated on women, puts "compatibility" at the top of his list of attributes that he would be looking for in a woman. I would replace compatibility with dialectic.

  James Ellroy

  Males, Would Be, Lists

  Interview by Keith Phipps, www.avclub.com. September 9, 2010.

  5 Copy quote

• 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 envy the blood on your conscience.

  James Ellroy

  Men, Blood, Envy

  FaceBook post by James Ellroy from Jan 20, 2015

  15 Copy quote

• The wildest ride in modern crime novel exoticum. A novel so steeped in milieu that it feels as if you've blasted to mars in the grip of a demon who won't let you go. Read this book, savor the language-it's the last-and the most compelling word in thrillers.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Crime Novels, Mars

  15 Copy quote

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

  James Ellroy

  Thinking, Easy, My Future

  9 Copy quote

• I drank, I used drugs, I broke into houses, sniffed women's undergarments. I ate Benzedrex inhalers, jacked off for 18 hours at a pop, lived with my dad in a shitpad.

  James Ellroy

  Dad, House, Drug

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview with John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

  4 Copy quote

• 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 get it. It's going to be shelved in crime and it's just the way it is. I've done something that no one else has ever done; I've started out as a mystery writer, a police writer, and a crime writer, and I became something entirely different.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Thinking, Awards

  Interview with Chris Wallace, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 9, 2014.

  5 Copy quote

• I begin by assembling notes on characters. Large swaths of the plot become clear to me as I do this.

  James Ellroy

  Character, Plot, Notes

  11 Copy quote

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

  James Ellroy

  Morning, Bed, Earth

  12 Copy quote

• Our shared world is humanly unquantifiable and ideologically confused. Which one of them is capable of implementing the most recognizable harm or good?

  James Ellroy

  Confused, World, Harm

  13 Copy quote

• I cleaned up. I quit drinking, I quit doing drugs, I quit stealing, I quit breaking into houses, I tried to quit being a bad human being. I developed a conscience later in life than many. I call it the lost-time-regained dynamic.

  James Ellroy

  Drinking, Later In Life, House

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview by John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

  6 Copy quote

• You try to learn who you are. You work hard. You've either got it or you don't when it comes to writing books. And you tend to only get these things if you want them, and want them to the exclusion of everything else.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Hard Work, Writing

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview with John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  James Ellroy

  Father, Kids, Forever

  8 Copy quote

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

  James Ellroy

  Thinking, Self, Males

  "The Onion talks to crime-fiction kingpin James Ellroy". Interview by John Krewson, www.avclub.com. November 20, 1996.

  5 Copy quote

• 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?” “To pre-med, then psychology, then English lit, then history.” “I like a woman who knows what she wants.” Kay smiled. “So do I, but I don’t know any.

  James Ellroy

  Psychology, Want, Pads

  10 Copy quote

• 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 Mouse watches and all this intolerable stuff.

  James Ellroy

  Doors, People, Waiting

  9 Copy quote

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