As critical acclaim and response has built up, every interview I give is a chance to puncture the myth I've created about my work and refine 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.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Press button woman was there for himFor whatever he was wanting.No demand was too bigPress button woman knew her gig.

We shouldn’t pass judgment until we see how things play out. Actions never tell the whole story. Good can be done for the wrong reason. And bad can be misunderstood.

In the world of existence there is no more powerful magnet than the magnet of love.

That's when civil liberty suffers - when we think special times justify the diminution of civil liberties. And I'm not going to accept that.

If a patron buys from an artist who needs money (needs money to buy tools, time, food), the patron then makes himself equal to the artist; he is building art into the world; he creates.

The only mistake that we can make as human beings is to be asleep, unaware of ourselves.

The outcome is what you put in.

What inspired me as a child is the same thing that inspires me now: being nice. I always try to one up everybody with verses and be lyrical and just stand for the art.

People and relationships never stop being a work in progress