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

I don't think I will write anything that could be even remotely considered a genre novel from this point on. I think I've graduated.

I'm way past the idea of using ideology or political view as a gauge of human character. I simply don't believe it. And many people, I tend to think most people, feel that way. Since I don't have to worry about it, I'm happy.

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.

If I wanted to make money I would have written another novel.

The lunatic populism that preceded the Pearl Harbor bombing is astonishing in its permutations, its crisscrossings. Guys like [Catholic priest and controversial radio broadcaster] Father Coughlin and [racist and anti-Semitic agitator and founder of the Christian Nationalist Crusade] Gerald L.K. Smith started out as share-the-wealth socialists.

And you love to read, you love to escape, right?