To write more from memory and to be more creative - I think - because I am still writing about Los Angeles but I can't walk out my door and immediately drive to places I am writing about. So I think it has been a very good change for me after 11 books to start writing this way.

She refused to accept the simple truism that the better you were, the bigger threat you were to those at the top.

If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?

Can't complain because nobody listens.

How I work is that I write a story I'd like to read. Then you fly to Paris or Sydney and the interviewers talk about the greater significance of your work.

I never miss L.A. because I'm there enough.

I've been able to write at least one book a year for 20 years, and I don't think I would've had that kind of drive if I hadn't come out of the journalism business.