James Ellroy quotes

James Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer, widely acclaimed for his dark and complex novels about crime and corruption in Los Angeles. His works often delve into the gritty underbelly of American society, blending historical events with intricate plotting. He is known for a distinctive, staccato prose style and for creating iconic series like the "L.A. Quartet" and "Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy." Here are 33 of his quotes:

I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers.

James Ellroy

To me, there's nothing on earth other than women. It's why I get out of bed every morning.

James Ellroy

Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.

James Ellroy

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.

James Ellroy

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

I love thinking about American history, thinking about LA history. I love brooding on crime.

James Ellroy

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

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

As much as I transferred my mother to Elizabeth Shore of The Black Dahlia, as much as her dad mutated into an obsession with crime in general, well, I have thought about other things throughout the years.

James Ellroy

It was easy not to think of my future; I didn't have one.

James Ellroy

I don't know anybody in the underworld. I make this stuff up. I don't know any criminals.

James Ellroy

I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.

James Ellroy

Cats gotta scratch. Dogs gotta bite. I gotta write.

James Ellroy

I learn things late-and only the hard way.

James Ellroy

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

James Ellroy

When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.

James Ellroy

"War gives men a plain-and-simple something to do ... Women write diaries in the hope that their words will beckon fate." It's a romantic manifesto.

James Ellroy

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

James Ellroy

Every one of my books is written from the viewpoint of cops, with the exception of my book Killer on the Road, which is written from the viewpoint of a serial killer.

James Ellroy

I've been tremendously moved by a bunch of odd books. Ross McDonald is very important to me. I love the Lew Archer books.

James Ellroy

As a kid, I sensed history going on all around me, but the basic thrust of it didn't move me.

James Ellroy

I needed to address that I've had some profound moral shifts in my own life.

James Ellroy