Raymond Chandler once wrote that Dashiell Hammett gave murder back to the people who really committed it.

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.

Books are just old friends waiting to be discovered.

You don't have to know how you are going to accomplish your goals, you just have to know that you will.

That word, confidence, was like butter on a hot stove for Darien, what he considered the most attractive quality in a woman.

Evil is a source of moral intelligence in the sense that we need to learn from our shadow, from our dark side, in order to be good.

Of course I make mistakes. I'm human. If I didn't make mistakes, I'd never learn. You can only go forward by making mistakes.

I spent my 30s figuring out how to be a grown up, I guess. I loved my 30s! My 30s were really about being happy with what I was doing.

There is anguish in the recollection that we have not adequately appreciated the affection of those whom we have loved and lost.

AC/DC has lived the dumbness that the Ramones have only faked all these years.

If this is the information age, what are we so well-informed about?

I was always told I was ugly. I still think I am ugly. I know I've got an odd face and you can't tell me otherwise.