Dead people belong to the live people who claim them most obsessively.

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.

Happiness got me two ungrateful sons, a husband who hates me, and a painful reality living as the shunned wife. If you think this happiness you’re clinging to will last, think again.

If the gift of God is for personal use and gain, God would have used it personally

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.

A governor can be a very good friend to people. A governor can be a formidable force.

Prosperity is the opposite of greedy.

I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice.

You never want to give a man a present when he's feeling good. You want to do it when he's down.

I want to do the reverse of what people would think.

A lot of people relate me to the blues but I don't think it's a hindrance at this point. I've been doing it long enough that I can do different things and be accepted.

Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.