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

Dead people belong to the live people who claim them most obsessively.

I don't have children. I serve the world and I serve God by living as deep within my work as I can, reveling in the language of other times and putting it forth for the world.

I think I'm out of crime fiction now, and I think the dividing line is American Tabloid.

The 1950s to me is darkness, hidden history, perversion behind most doors waiting to creep out. The 1950s to most people is kitsch and Mickey Mouse watches and all this intolerable stuff.

History is a state of yearning. I yearn for Kay Lake throughout this entire thing. There's an essay I've written where I talked about living in the past. There's a whole motif in the book of then and now. And I lived there.

All I want to do is make serious movies that explore social issues and turn a profit, and slip the schnitzel to Jane DePugh.