Quote

America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.

James Ellroy

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James Ellroy
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: March 4
Autobiographer
Crime Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Never
Events
Regrets
Single
Conception
Lose
Event
Grace
Boat
Popped
Loses
Innocent
Ascribe
Fall
Regret
Lacked
America
Looked
Cherry
Back
Circumstances
Cherries

More quotes by James Ellroy

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I begin by assembling notes on characters. Large swaths of the plot become clear to me as I do this.
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Dead people belong to the live people who claim them most obsessively.
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I'd never been interested in the Kennedy assassination until '88, when I read Libra. And from that point, I went out and bought the existing Kennedy theory books, most of which are outlandish. But what DeLillo posits - some rogue CIA guys - is the most dramatically sound, plausible explanation for it.
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I almost had an intransigent mental spirit. I always wanted things.
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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.
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I work within the framework of a very concerted, purely driven Protestant Christian mindset. I had dark early circumstances. I went inward. I have a sturdy will. I have a big heart. I'm a decent guy. And I have a great gift. It's blunted me to the world in many ways.
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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.
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You get up in the morning because you might meet a woman. And if you stay at home by yourself, alone, you will not meet a woman.
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Joe Wambaugh's a friend. I know him only casually, but I like him a lot. I think he likes my books.
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There are a lot of Ellroy lifts, man. This guy went to school. But then there's a willful thing that comes over me - God gives it to me - where I go, That's real nice, let's just go home, pat yourself on the back, good dog, good dog, and wake up in the morning and go to work.
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As a kid, I sensed history going on all around me, but the basic thrust of it didn't move me.
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I kept saying, Stop me now. It's going to my head. I got some photos. Really, I did! It's not my noblest sexual self in these moments, but I want to have fun. I want to undress. I get off my leash to go out and perform. Some other writers are just discomforted by the way I behave in public. Because they're loath to perform.
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L.A.: Come on vacation, go home on probation.
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I needed to address that I've had some profound moral shifts in my own life.
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I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.
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My mother and I will continue on some level that I havent determined yet. I think my mothers a great character, and I have to say that giving my mother to the world has to be the biggest thrill of my writing career.
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I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.
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There's none with me, although you've seen me before - I'm outrageous.
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Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.
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Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist.
James Ellroy