Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Writing a screenplay is so spare, it kind of reminded me that I really should celebrate what I can do in a book, which is description: for example, places, people, locations. "

Related Quotes:

" I've crossed the Mexican border and gone to Tijuana a few times over the years, but I've never felt comfortable there. "

Michael Connelly

Mexican

Never

Comfortable

" The TV audience is way bigger than a book audience, and no matter what I do, I'm always thinking if this will help people read my books. "

" I write at a pace that suits me, and sometimes it's two books a year, but most often it's one. "

" When you're working on a novel, you never think about how much it would cost to shoot one of your scenes. But that's a huge consideration in film and TV. "

" Write every day even if it is just a paragraph. "

" I learned to write crime novels by reading people I hoped to emulate: people like James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, Joseph Wambaugh, and Sue Grafton. "

Michael Connelly

People

Write

" I write my books never thinking of an actor. "

" Now I'm writing about contemporary Los Angeles from memory. My process was to hang out, observe, research what I was writing about, and almost immediately go back to my office and write those sections. So it was a very close transfer between observation and writing. "

" When I was a teenager, I was a voracious reader of crime fiction, but only contemporary books. I was not interested in reading 'The Glass Key' or 'The Maltese Falcon' - stuff that was 40 or 50 years old. "

" I think the only boundaries are individual and personal. A writer should be free to write about anything he or she wants to, including the twin towers. I have made small references to 9/11 in my past two books. "

" I was a police reporter, so I got into the worlds that I write about, and I think many of the details in my books come from those days. "

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

" My history is that I will create a character, and they will have a book to themselves, and then I'll integrate the character into the larger world of all my books. "

" This next to never happens, but if I had time to sit on a beach and read, I wouldn't read a cozy. But I've read cozies. That's how I got interested in crime fiction: because my mother was a soft-boiled reader. "

" I not only read Raymond Chandler but read all the crime fiction classics. I was hooked. "

" One of the great things about fiction is you can use an issue and describe it in human terms. "

" You know that song, 'New York, New York?' If I can make it here, I'll make it anywhere? That's kind of like L.A. "

" I think I would spend the first 30 weeks not writing, just clearing my head and seeing parts of the world I haven't seen and going back to places I have seen and love. "

" I admit my reading time is limited because I can write in the situations and places where people usually read. But reading is the fuel - it's inspiring - so I try to keep the tank full. What happens most of the time is I binge read. I will put aside a day or two to do nothing but read. "

" As a former reporter, I wrote 'The Scarecrow' quickly - I didn't have to think about what the character would do the way I do with Harry Bosch. "

" I feel I'm functioning at some level as a journalist because even though I write fiction, I'm trying to get the world accurate. "

" When I write about Mickey Haller as the Lincoln lawyer, I totally see Matthew McConaughey because he took that character when that character was still fairly new to me - only two or three years old - when I knew McConaughey was going to play him. He's also the same age, the right age, in comparison to the book. "

Michael Connelly

Book

Character

" In 'Blood Work,' they made choices I wouldn't have made, but I'm not a filmmaker. I took the money, and they told the story. "

" That's what I like most about writing fiction over journalism: the easy metaphors! "

" What is overriding that and most important is that readers generally are interested in a good character. They might be more comfortable with Harry because they think they know him, but they always seem willing to give somebody new a chance. "

" The criminal defense attorney is misunderstood if not despised by most of society. It doesn't matter if we believe in our adversarial system and the ideal that everyone charged with a crime is entitled to a vigorous defense. Ideals give away to reality - defense lawyers working loopholes and angles to get their clients off. "

" As a writer, you look for inspiration wherever you can get it. "

" As a reporter, you develop an ear for dialogue because it's your job to capture it accurately. "

" The LAPD, like most police departments, is a male-dominated bureaucracy. A woman faces a lot of pushback. "

" To get a connection to your characters, you have to put them in a situation that you can feel yourself. "