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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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James Ellroy
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: March 4
Autobiographer
Crime Writer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Time
Later
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Quitting
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Stealing
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More quotes by James Ellroy

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The wildest ride in modern crime novel exoticum. A novel so steeped in milieu that it feels as if you've blasted to mars in the grip of a demon who won't let you go. Read this book, savor the language-it's the last-and the most compelling word in thrillers.
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I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.
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Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.
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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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Tell me anything. Tell me everything. Revoke our time apart. Love me fierce in danger.
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We do. Or re-create the ones we have, and project. My whole life is projection.
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I'm not interested in popular culture. I hate Quentin Tarantino. I rarely go to movies. I hate rock 'n' roll. I work. I think. I listen to classical music. I brood. I like sports cars.
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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.
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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.
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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 think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.
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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.
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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.
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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 think I'm out of crime fiction now, and I think the dividing line is American Tabloid.
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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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I begin by assembling notes on characters. Large swaths of the plot become clear to me as I do this.
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I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.
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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.
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I learn things late-and only the hard way.
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