John Gregory Dunne

New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities “ in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East.

There was no pretense to objectivity; 'Time' had a partisan Republican point of view, and if it was one not shared by many of its gentrified Ivy Leaguers, few felt the compulsion to quit.

A writer is an eternal outsider, his nose pressed against whatever window on the other side of which he sees his material.

I call myself a harp because I like the sound of the word - it is short, sharp, and abusive.

All life is inherently dangerous. But beyond that, Los Angeles is just a wonderful place to be.

There are no new facts about the Kennedys, only new attitudes, a literature that, like the automobile industry, puts new bodies on old chassis.

I liked Los Angeles for odd reasons. For one, there was no sense of community. You were really left to your own resources, spending this inordinate amount of time alone in a balloon of an automobile. I liked that a lot.

I am willing to believe, but I do not have the gift of faith. I'm skeptical.

What the world does not need is another script or television writer.

Anecdotes are factoids of questionable provenance, burnished to a high gloss, often set in gilded venues and populated with familiar names as background atmosphere, purged of ambiguity in the interest of keeping the narrative flowing smoothly.

What is astonishing about the social history of the Vietnam war is not how many people avoided it, but how many could not and did not.

No professional athlete likes to admit that he has played too long. There is too much money involved, rarely enough saved, and there is the eternal hope that age has not withered skills.

Being a professional screenwriter is perhaps the hardest occupation. Because nothing is ever yours and, by the nature of the medium, you are never ultimately responsible for your work. It can be interesting - if you have another outlet.

Class was always the domestic issue during the Vietnam War, not communism.

The myth of the Kennedys - and the hold - was always the hold of the renegade rich, out there on the frontier beyond accountability.

Conspiracy is a small but durable seller, retooled every year or so.

I resist and resent the idea of California as a metaphor. It's something thrust upon us, usually by people in the East.

The world is divided up into two kinds of people - those who look at their body waste in the toilet bowl, and those who don't.

Being exposed to the enlisted Army was an eye-opener. I thought everyone was like me, but the enlisted Army is a constituency of the dispossessed.

I got 'The Red White and Blue' out of journalism. It puts you in touch with the world.

Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.

You do nonfiction, you get to meet people you would not normally meet.

Gavin Lambert was the first person in the movie business my wife and I met when we moved to Los Angeles in 1964.

Conspiracy is a small but durable seller retooled every year or so.

In what purports to be an egalitarian society, the existence of class is the secret about which no one speaks.

Life is much more available in New York - there are a dozen movie theaters within walking distance. Living in California is easier, but you get sedentary.

I'm not a bad mimic, and I can pick up speech cadences that I would not pick up if I didn't hit the road.

I love cops; I'm fascinated by the criminal justice system.

Most anyplace one lives is essentially dangerous. There are floods in the Midwest, and tornadoes. There are hurricanes along the Gulf. In New York, you get mugged.

I've always thought a novelist only has one character, and that is himself or herself. In my case, me.

I'm a great believer in the novelist being 'on the scene,' reporting, traveling, meeting all sorts of people.