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

James Ellroy

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James Ellroy
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: March 4
Autobiographer
Crime Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Write
Scratches
Writing
Bite
Bites
Cats
Gotta
Dogs
Cat
Dog
Scratch

More quotes by James Ellroy

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I was in L.A. in '08. It was a cold Saturday night. I had spread my phone number out to a score of women and was just indulging this sweet, sad, elegiac, bale loneliness - don't tell me you haven't been there.
James Ellroy
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I want to have enough data, so I won't write myself into thin air, so that I can extrapolate and give you this secret human infrastructure. The only way I sate my own curiosity is to create this from scratch. There must be commanding love stories. There must be great moral cost.
James Ellroy
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If I wanted to make money I would have written another novel.
James Ellroy
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And the only forms of socialism in the world that were then getting results - malign ones, as it was - were the Fascist and Soviet republics. Fascism is a form of socialism - you rebuild the country, you find a scapegoat, and you go from there.
James Ellroy
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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.
James Ellroy
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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.
James Ellroy
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I almost had an intransigent mental spirit. I always wanted things.
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.
James Ellroy
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I'm way past the idea of using ideology or political view as a gauge of human character. I simply don't believe it. And many people, I tend to think most people, feel that way. Since I don't have to worry about it, I'm happy.
James Ellroy
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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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Closure is a preposterous concept worthy of the worst aspects of American daytime TV.
James Ellroy
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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.
James Ellroy
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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.
James Ellroy
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I needed to address that I've had some profound moral shifts in my own life.
James Ellroy
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There's none with me, although you've seen me before - I'm outrageous.
James Ellroy
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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.
James Ellroy
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L.A.: Come on vacation, go home on probation.
James Ellroy
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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.
James Ellroy
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I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.
James Ellroy
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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