Quote

I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.

James Ellroy

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James Ellroy
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: March 4
Autobiographer
Crime Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Pity
Fiction
Movies
Pervades
Self
Noir
Great
Unspoken
Think
Theme
Thinking
Male
Males

More quotes by James Ellroy

Image
I almost had an intransigent mental spirit. I always wanted things.
James Ellroy
Image
I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.
James Ellroy
Image
As a kid, I sensed history going on all around me, but the basic thrust of it didn't move me.
James Ellroy
Image
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
Image
Tell me anything. Tell me everything. Revoke our time apart. Love me fierce in danger.
James Ellroy
Image
I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.
James Ellroy
Image
There's none with me, although you've seen me before - I'm outrageous.
James Ellroy
Image
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.
James Ellroy
Image
I'm grateful for the life I have. I lived bad for many years, and I've got a great life now. I've got the kind of life people only dream about.
James Ellroy
Image
Dead people belong to the live people who claim them most obsessively.
James Ellroy
Image
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
Image
I don't think I came out of anybody. I think I developed out of the influences I described in My Dark Places. American history, L.A. of the 1950s. I'm comfortable with that.
James Ellroy
Image
The truth of the matter is, you lose a parent to murder when you're 10 years old, and in fact at the time of the murder you hate your lost parent, my mother in my case.
James Ellroy
Image
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
Image
I'm trying to be less bombastic. I love my books. I think I've done things nobody else has done.
James Ellroy
Image
I like to have fun out there. I work hard, and then I get to cut loose and go out and tour, and I enjoy it. I like to go out and meet the people. I love to sell books.
James Ellroy
Image
Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.
James Ellroy
Image
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.
James Ellroy
Image
Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.
James Ellroy
Image
I got a woman I'm loyal to above all things, above my career. She's profound to me. I'm quiet. I live in Kansas City. I work.
James Ellroy