In Greek tragedy, they fall from great heights. In noir, they fall from the curb.

I love to write, so it rarely seems like work - even when it gets arduous.

L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it's simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won't have to hear the screams of the drowning.

I have a lot of rage about things that didn't happen to me, tied up with watching an immigrant, working-class father struggle to make his way through the world - and seeing how society was modeled to keep him in his place.

I love television. I think we're in a renaissance of epic proportion in television now.

Charm was the luxury of those who still believed in the essential rightness of things. In purity and picket fences.

What's your name?" "Emma Gould," she said. "What's yours?" "Wanted." "By all the girls or just the law?