Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically -- any way you want to look at it -- everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.

Momentum was momentum, whether you found it in music or on the street or in the beat of your own heart.

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

That's the irony in the work: the best stories are the worst things that happen. My best times were somebody else's worst.

A newspaper is the center of a community, it's one of the tent poles of the community, and that's not going to be replaced by Web sites and blogs.

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

I love movies. Movies have influenced me as a writer.