I wanted to portray a newly democratized, enclosed society. I wanted to show how extraordinarily fluid people are in their embrace of other human beings.

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.

One hundred years of joy can be erased in one second

Shall we judge a country by the majority or by the minority? By the minority surely.

Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.

'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' is one of the greatest films of all time.

One of the lies that we tell ourselves is that we're making progress; but Huey's chair's empty.

I've never been one to sit back and go, 'I'd better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don't want to lose them.'

Israel is still the only country in the world against which there is a written document to the effect that it must disappear.

Whether we like it or not, gender differences matter in a combat situation.

When you say, "Wait a moment," you are bound by your karma; when you say "Yes I will," you are free.