James Ellroy Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• I'd never been interested in the Kennedy assassination until '88, when I read Libra. And from that point, I went out and bought the existing Kennedy theory books, most of which are outlandish. But what DeLillo posits - some rogue CIA guys - is the most dramatically sound, plausible explanation for it.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Guy, Sound

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

• Joe Wambaugh's a friend. I know him only casually, but I like him a lot. I think he likes my books.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Thinking, Likes

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

• I have insane curiosity as to what happened in all these events. I will never know. I'm not a researcher. I don't possess that kind of mind. I have a researcher who compiles the fact sheets and chronologies that allow me to write these big books of mine.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Writing, Curiosity

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

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

  James Ellroy

  Book, Thinking, Trying

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

• 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.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Serial Killer, Viewpoints

• 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.

• 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.

• 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 to stay home tonite and read a good book!!!!!!!!!!

  James Ellroy

  Book, Home, Groovy

• 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 first time ever. I feel like I've confronted her, and the confrontation goes on.

  James Ellroy

  Mother, Book, Writing

  Source: www.avclub.com

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

  James Ellroy

  Book, Archer, Mcdonalds

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

  James Ellroy

  Book, Writing, Changing My Life

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

• 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

• I like to have fun out there. I work hard, and then I get to cut loose and go out and tour, and I enjoy it. I like to go out and meet the people. I love to sell books.

  James Ellroy

  Fun, Book, Hard Work

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

• I don't have a cellphone or a computer. I deliberately circumscribe my mental life within the periods that I write about, and the power of Perfidia is that it's the result of complete immersion. I was there for the two years that it took me to write that book.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Writing, Years

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

• The 250-page outline for American Tabloid. The books are so dense. They're so complex, you cannot write like I write off the top of your head. It's the combination of that meticulousness and the power of the prose and, I think, the depth of the characterizations and the risks that I've taken with language that give the books their clout. And that's where I get pissed off at a lot of my younger readers.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Taken, Writing

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

• History is a state of yearning. I yearn for Kay Lake throughout this entire thing. There's an essay I've written where I talked about living in the past. There's a whole motif in the book of then and now. And I lived there.

  James Ellroy

  Book, Past, Lakes

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

• My guys are morally weak, and they reach toward a tenuous knowledge of self-sacrifice, and sometimes it's too late. I find that moving. It's not a life I'd want to live. But, then, I'm not completely my books.

  James Ellroy

  Moving, Book, Sacrifice

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

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