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

My grandparents were all born in the U.S., but their parents came from Ireland.

I was fired as an actor on 'Bosch.'

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.

The three books I've written in Florida about L.A. are my best takes on the physicality of the city, as far as description goes.

I don't think anyone will believe me, but I've never been pressured by a publisher to churn out a book.

I've sold 11 of my books to Hollywood. There are all kinds of my books on shelves in Hollywood because the scripts didn't capture the characters.

I never write thinking, 'What would a woman do?' any more than I think, 'What would a man do?' It comes down to what would a solid detective do in these circumstances.

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.

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.

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.

As far as characters in fiction that I really admire - it's pretty strong to say you would wish that you had created another character - but I'll throw out Will Graham, the protagonist in 'Red Dragon,' a book I've read several times.

We want our government to protect us, to make sure something like 9/11 never happens again. We quickly moved to give law enforcement more power to do this. But that now begs the question, did we move to fast? Did we give too much power away? I don't have the answer.

I write my books never thinking of an actor.

Many writers learned their craft and work ethic at a newspaper. I benefited from that.

I like stories about people who have to go into darkness for a good reason and then have to figure out how to deal with the darkness that seeps into their souls.

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.

In a daydream sort of way, I think it would be pretty cool to direct a movie. But I have been on movie and TV sets and know it is hard work. I like directing it in my mind. It is easier.

I've always thought of L.A. as the modern version of 'The Garden of Earthly Delights.'

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

I think it's pretty apparent who my favorites are because I keep coming back to them. At the top of that list would be Harry Bosch, who's now going on 20 years of literary life. I still like him the best because there's still a lot to say about him.

I'm just going to write the best books I can.

I'm not Mr. Hollywood. I'm a book writer.

I wrote my first real murder story as a journalist for the Daytona Beach News Journal in 1980. It was about a body found in the woods. Later, the murder was linked to a serial killer who was later caught and executed for his crimes.

I realize now I could have gotten a whole book out of that and so I think that was a big mistake. But the truth is you write in the moment and with your head down and there is no way back then that I could have conceived of Harry having the longevity that he has had.

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

My favorite is 'The Last Coyote.' I'm not saying that's the best book I've written; I hope I haven't written my best book yet, but that one was the first book I wrote as a full-time author, with my full-time focus. I have a nostalgic feeling about it.

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.

I could not have been happier with 'The Lincoln Lawyer.' They got the essence, and the casting, starting with McConaughey, was just perfect.

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.

I don't put a lot of description in the books because I write books the way I like to read them, and that is I like to build images and be a creative reader, and so I write that way.

Being a journalist always makes you a quick study of wherever you're at. You're out all the time and seeing places that normally you wouldn't get to see. It gives you an unusual level of insight into any place.

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

In writing on the page, you can be a bit elliptical, but on TV, you can't dance around stuff. You either show it, or you don't.

I'm one hundred percent Irish, and I'm very proud that I'm Irish American, though I don't know exactly where my ancestors came from. I just know County Cork.

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.

My literary heroes all wrote about L.A.: Joseph Wambaugh, Ross Macdonald, and Raymond Chandler were the three writers that made me want to be a writer.

In the real world, some defense lawyers never have an innocent client in their whole career.

A movie is like a city. There's, like, 150 people working, and it's all because of something that came out of your head.

Ross McDonald had a greater influence on me than any other writer. His style of writing, the repeated theme of the past coming out to grab somebody, that's very attractive to me as a reader and, now, as a writer.

When I write about places in L.A. - like where the best taco truck is or something - it's not about L.A. To me, it's about Harry Bosch, because he's the guy that does these things and has this experience.

I trust the readers to build their own visual images. To me, that's part of the wonder of reading.

It wasn't a decision to become a writer. I wanted to become a writer of crime fiction. I was very specific.

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 think books with weak or translucent plots can survive if the character being drawn along the path is rich, interesting and multi-faceted. The opposite is not true.

I'm always looking at ways of shaking up the writing experience because I think it helps.

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.

The characters I write about are very internal.

I think there'd be huge losses if there weren't newspapers. I know everything's shifting to the Internet and some people would say, 'News is news, what you're talking about is a change of consumption, not the product that's out there.' But I think there is a change.

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