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
Humans
Conscience
Houses
Many
Tried
Quit
Time
Later
Breaking
Drug
Quitting
Life
Call
Stealing
Lost
Developed
Regained
House
Drugs
Cleaned
Human
Drinking
Dynamic

More quotes by James Ellroy

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There's none with me, although you've seen me before - I'm outrageous.
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L.A. ispolluted. It's overpopulated. But it is very much home. It was inevitable for me, the moving back. I was living in San Francisco, and Joan broke it off with me, and I needed a place to live. I'd been divorced. And I needed to write movies and TV shows to earn a living. Alimony. All that. So I figured what the hell, I'll go back to L.A.
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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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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.
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L.A.: Come on vacation, go home on probation.
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Tell me anything. Tell me everything. Revoke our time apart. Love me fierce in danger.
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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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Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.
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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'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 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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I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime novelist who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific what Tolstoy is to the Russian novel and what Beethoven is to music.
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I almost had an intransigent mental spirit. I always wanted things.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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I learn things late-and only the hard way.
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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Our shared world is humanly unquantifiable and ideologically confused. Which one of them is capable of implementing the most recognizable harm or good?
James Ellroy