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.

I love thinking about American history, thinking about LA history. I love brooding on crime.

Some people don’t respond to civility.

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

I wanted to portray a newly democratized, enclosed society. I wanted to show how extraordinarily fluid people are in their embrace of other human beings.

I was a WASP kid going to a high school that was 99 percent Jewish and I wanted attention and I wanted to make a spectacle of myself because I couldn't stand to be ignored.

I learn things late-and only the hard way.