James Ellroy, Rabid dog of the American crime novel, turns 72 today. So there are already a few March barking with their devilish literature. My love / heartbreak story with this great culminated last year when I was lucky to meet him and put me within reach of its sharpest fangs and wagons. I already told here. But today, to celebrate her birthday, I have done a raid of phrases of his novels, which I have more than pointed out, underlined and groped. Let there be a few others, Mr. Ellroy.
James Ellroy - Phrase Selection
Clandestine (1982)
- Time and place impose on me. (…) Today is today and it will never be again.
- The key to the wonder was found in death. I had already killed, twice, and that had changed me. But the key was not in death, but in the discovery of what had led to it.
Because of the night (1984)
- My goal in this life is to do "nothing" excellently well. My fault was that I liked to do it with stolen cars.
- The night is to be conquered; only those who are above its laws can get the loot and survive.
Blood on the moon (1984)
- He didn't get along with anyone and he didn't care. He was not a fool, not an athlete, not a son of a bitch. He wasn't a loner either, he was just different.
Suicide hill (1985)
- Symptomatically, Sergeant Hopkins, a self-described "tough cop" and epicurean, as he describes himself, has followed his violent urges and sexual desires with the reckless fervor of a true sociopath.
The killer of the road (1986)
- By taking their lives, I met them in the most exquisite moments of their existence.
- I pulled out my Teflon-lined matte steel ax with the guaranteed edge and struck him at the neck with it. The head was cleanly separated from the trunk and blood spurted from the cavity; her arms and legs jerked, then her whole body collapsed to the ground. The force of the blow spun me around, and for a second my vision encompassed the entire scene: the blood-spattered walls, the corpse expelling an arterial geyser from the neck, while the heart continued to beat reflexively.
The Black Dahlia (1987)
- There are people unable to respond adequately to courtesy.
- I felt ten times more scared than I had ever been in the ring, and not because chaos was closing in on us from all directions. I was terrified, because actually the good guys were the bad guys.
The great desert (1988)
- I'm glad being with you is dangerous. It is comforting.
- It all came down to money, the common denominator that equals everything.
Los Angeles Confidential (1990)
- Policemen suffered the same temptations as civilians, but they had to contain their instincts to a greater degree to serve as moral models in a society increasingly eroded by the growing influence of communism, crime, liberalism, and moral dullness.
- The notes indicated a limited man searching for the stars, and reaching almost all of them. Limits exceeded through furious perseverance. Absolute, anonymous justice, without promotions or glory. […] Wendell Bud White seen for the first time.
White jazz (1992)
- His farewell: we are too handsome to lose.
- You're a peeper too, boy. You have come into contact with your own dark tendencies and now you enjoy the thrill of being a mere spectator.
America (1995)
- You cannot lose what you have never had.
My dark corners (1996)
- She was neither more nor less than my salvation.
- The dead belong to the living who most obsessively claim them.
Perfidia (2014)
- History affects both individuals and nations. History takes the form of a colossal debt that ordinary people pay in blood.
- She adored men and went mad with repressed desire. That led me to successive adventures with unreliable jazz players. Sex was not what I imagined. It was tension, smell, and inconvenient prosaic alliances. It was a sweet and sad revelation, and all my hopes were dashed.