I guess 'The Player' was a pretty good L.A. movie. And 'Chinatown.' Was there ever a better L.A. movie about a certain period in L.A.? That was terrific.

I don't know that I can define fear. But one of the sources of fear is holding up some sort of model life that doesn't exist and feeling like you're far away from it.

If you look at the best-seller list for American fiction, they're all sequels to detective stories or stories about hunting serial killers. That's what's called American fiction these days.

What's interesting about books that take place in the future, even twenty years in the future, is that many of them are black or white: It's either a utopia or it's misery. The real truth is that there's going to be both things in any future, just like there is now.

I have children. I have a family to support. But I really could live in a one-room apartment, as long as the television worked. I never needed anything. Just a comfortable chair and I'm fine.

I can't not put humor in a book.

Film is the cheapest part of the movie making process. The expense is the 100-man crew and the financing and everything.