Quote

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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James Ellroy
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: March 4
Autobiographer
Crime Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Lost
Developed
Regained
House
Drugs
Cleaned
Human
Drinking
Dynamic
Humans
Conscience
Houses
Many
Tried
Quit
Time
Later
Breaking
Life
Drug
Quitting
Call
Stealing

More quotes by James Ellroy

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I learn things late-and only the hard way.
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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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.
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Our shared world is humanly unquantifiable and ideologically confused. Which one of them is capable of implementing the most recognizable harm or good?
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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.
James Ellroy
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I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.
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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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I don't have children. I serve the world and I serve God by living as deep within my work as I can, reveling in the language of other times and putting it forth for the world.
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Sometimes I'll leave the house and go to a delicatessen down the street from me - it's been there a million years - just because I can look at people.
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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Joe Wambaugh's a friend. I know him only casually, but I like him a lot. I think he likes my books.
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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The novel is final form it's the ultimate individual final form. Television and motion pictures never get there. You'd be fabulous to think that something you write is even going to be filmed. I give it the best shot of which I'm capable. But it's more a payday for me. And if I didn't have alimony and the full-time assistant.
James Ellroy
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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.
James Ellroy
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I was a WASP kid going to a high school that was 99 percent Jewish and I wanted attention and I wanted to make a spectacle of myself because I couldn't stand to be ignored.
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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I don't feel in any way obligated to remain current with the culture. I feel no social obligation whatsoever. I trust my morality in the narrow path I trek through the world as I work.
James Ellroy
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I am conservative by temperament. I disapprove of criminal activity. I am very solidly and markedly on the side of authority. The truth is I would rather err on the side of too much authority than too little.
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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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