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I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.

Michael Connelly

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Michael Connelly
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: July 21
Actor
Author
Chronicler
Crime Writer
Film Producer
Journalist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Michael Joseph Connelly
Learn
Crafts
Write
Journalism
Wanted
Criminals
Writing
Police
World
Close
System
Went
Craft
Justice
Criminal

More quotes by Michael Connelly

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I'm a disciple of Raymond Chandler, who said in his essays that there's a quality of redemption in anything that can be called art.
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Action and adventure on land and sea-you can't ask for more. But Robert Kurson raises the ante in Pirate Hunters with an array of mystery and a fleet of colorful characters spanning four centuries. This is a great summer read!
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Now I'm writing about contemporary Los Angeles from memory. My process was to hang out, observe, research what I was writing about, and almost immediately go back to my office and write those sections. So it was a very close transfer between observation and writing.
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When I was a teenager, I was a voracious reader of crime fiction, but only contemporary books.
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You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.
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The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that when you look into the darkness of the abyss the abyss looks into you. Probably no other line or thought more inspires or informs my work.
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If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?
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Any writer would rather dig into character than dig into fancy plots.
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Write every day even if it is just a paragraph.
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I was enamored of detectives as a teenager. I liked what they did - piecing things together, thinking about situations. But to get there? Eight to ten years in a patrol car? I didn't have that in me. I didn't want to tell people what to do.
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The writing ethic was influenced - when you have to write every day, there's no such thing as writer's block.
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There were a billion lights out there on the horizon and I knew that all of them put together weren't enough to light the darkness in the hearts of some men.
Michael Connelly
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A newspaper is the center of a community, it's one of the tent poles of the community, and that's not going to be replaced by Web sites and blogs.
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Don't go growing a conscience on me, I said. I've been down that road. It doesn't lead you to anything good.
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There is no client as scary as an innocent man.
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I realize now I could have gotten a whole book out of that and so I think that was a big mistake. But the truth is you write in the moment and with your head down and there is no way back then that I could have conceived of Harry having the longevity that he has had.
Michael Connelly
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How I work is that I write a story I'd like to read. Then you fly to Paris or Sydney and the interviewers talk about the greater significance of your work.
Michael Connelly
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In a daydream sort of way, I think it would be pretty cool to direct a movie. But I have been on movie and TV sets and know it is hard work. I like directing it in my mind. It is easier.
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As a bassist he could never really be a sideman. He was always the anchor. He drove the beat. even if it was behind Miles Davis'a horn.
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I've learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.
Michael Connelly