I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.

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

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.

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

To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul.

Voting is a right best exercised by people who have taken time to learn about the issues.

Food is like a legal drug. You can take 50 cents and walk into the store and buy a Twinkie and get high. And it's killing people.

My miseries have always come out of my own flesh, never from any burden Jesus has laid on me.

There were a lot of signs being thrown at me. A lot of angels I was meeting, inspiring me to get back into show business.

No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.

In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.

[On his 83rd birthday] Physical condition or advancing of age are not obstacles to a perfect life. God does not look at external things but at the soul.

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers: Of April, May, or June, and July flowers. I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of the bridal cakes.

Four hundred wickets is 400 more than I thought I'd get.