For a much lauded writer, I'm not terribly self-absorbed. In social situations, which are difficult for me - I mean, this is an interview - I'm normally uncomfortable talking about myself.

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

I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.

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

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

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

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.

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.

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

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

I learn things late-and only the hard way.

Everything's a risk. Not doing anything is a risk. It's up to you.

Do I look as pretty as I feel?

Everything that happens in our lives has meaning even though we may not understand it or even pay attention to it.

But I don't have anything left inside of me to figure out where I fit in or what I want. If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want.

Over my lifetime, the car had actually transcended the fact that it is a car. It has become a venue.

I was an avid radio fan when I was a boy, as well as a great lover of comic strips

We have our own thoughts, and if we want others to know them, we must tell them.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

It [film-making] really just has to do with my own ghosts and phantoms. And I have to say, in the end, it's just my way of seeing things.

I do a lot of TV stuff, but I also turn a lot down - it's got to be an adventure.