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

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.

We have a man [Donald Trump] who judges people based on their performance regardless of your gender, race, your ethnic or religious background.

Stories are medicine. They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything - we need only listen.

I think that superhero comics in particular are really useful for talking about big emotions and feelings, and personifying and concretizing symbols.

The lazy ox wishes for horse-trappings, and the steed wishes to plough. [Lat., Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus.]

I didn't play or like a lot of board games as a child. I liked playing with my G.I. Joes and making up adventures for them.

Commercial distress in any great business center will the more surely create widespread disaster.

I find it most intriguing to contemplate the fact that while men are considering what place to give Jesus Christ in history, He has already decided what place to give them in eternity.

I don't think anyone here supports the legislation. But I'd like to hear you at least say that you don't support spanking by any parent, because you choose not to do it. You must think it's wrong.

I was looking for what the meaning of life was.

We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions.