I will not allow people to impose rules on me that don't make sense to me. And I live and work very much outside the literary world and the literary system. What they think and what they believe and what their rules are mean nothing to me.

Life, not death, is the great mystery you must confront.

But we are what we are, and humans will always hate.

I always wanted to write a book about LA, a big ambitious book. Nobody had ever really done it with LA- treating the city seriously as a major economic and cultural power, as the embodiment of 21st century America.

I'm writing books. They're still a mix of fact and fiction and will continue to be. I think it's an interesting place to work.

In life we often look to others for simple, but difficult answers, despite the fact that we have those answers ourselves.

I am aware that the battle I am fighting is a petty one, but I am also aware that in order to win that which is great, you must first win that which is small.