I don't have a cellphone or a computer. I deliberately circumscribe my mental life within the periods that I write about, and the power of Perfidia is that it's the result of complete immersion. I was there for the two years that it took me to write that book.

James Ellroy

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

James Ellroy

crime screws knows

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

James Ellroy

time-apart fierce danger

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

James Ellroy

vacation los-angeles home

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

James Ellroy

american-history crime thinking

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.

James Ellroy

envy men blood

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

James Ellroy

cat dog writing

The wildest ride in modern crime novel exoticum. A novel so steeped in milieu that it feels as if you've blasted to mars in the grip of a demon who won't let you go. Read this book, savor the language-it's the last-and the most compelling word in thrillers.

James Ellroy

mars crime-novels book

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

James Ellroy

careers play writing

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

James Ellroy

confused harm world

To me, there's nothing on earth other than women. It's why I get out of bed every morning.

James Ellroy

bed earth morning

Where’s your sketch pad?” I asked. … “I gave that up,” Kay said. “I wasn’t very good, so I changed my major.” “To what?” “To pre-med, then psychology, then English lit, then history.” “I like a woman who knows what she wants.” Kay smiled. “So do I, but I don’t know any.

James Ellroy

pads psychology want

I learn things late-and only the hard way.

James Ellroy

hard-way late way

I don't know anybody in the underworld. I make this stuff up. I don't know any criminals.

James Ellroy

underworld criminals stuff

L.A. ispolluted. It's overpopulated. But it is very much home. It was inevitable for me, the moving back. I was living in San Francisco, and Joan broke it off with me, and I needed a place to live. I'd been divorced. And I needed to write movies and TV shows to earn a living. Alimony. All that. So I figured what the hell, I'll go back to L.A.

James Ellroy

home writing moving

I always cringe when a male friend of mine, who's very fixated on women, puts "compatibility" at the top of his list of attributes that he would be looking for in a woman. I would replace compatibility with dialectic.

James Ellroy

males lists would-be

I cleaned up. I quit drinking, I quit doing drugs, I quit stealing, I quit breaking into houses, I tried to quit being a bad human being. I developed a conscience later in life than many. I call it the lost-time-regained dynamic.

James Ellroy

later-in-life drinking house

I drank, I used drugs, I broke into houses, sniffed women's undergarments. I ate Benzedrex inhalers, jacked off for 18 hours at a pop, lived with my dad in a shitpad.

James Ellroy

dad drug house

Closure is a preposterous concept worthy of the worst aspects of American daytime TV.

James Ellroy

closure aspect tvs

The 1950s to me is darkness, hidden history, perversion behind most doors waiting to creep out. The 1950s to most people is kitsch and Mickey Mouse watches and all this intolerable stuff.

James Ellroy

waiting doors people

I don't want to recover from writing this book [The Onion]. I feel very poised. I feel like I'm with my mother for the first time ever. I feel like I've confronted her, and the confrontation goes on.

James Ellroy

mother writing book