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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.