What I didn't know was that if I didn't stand with my back to the wall, Hollywood people would unscrew my ass and sell it down the river.

No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book.

The time has come for professional jurors.

The Onion Field made a real writer. And then I knew it was over, I couldn't be a cop anymore.

You've got people who are looking at DNA evidence and other evidence like that and they're ignoring it.

What is it about the component of fire? People have written about it. People have wondered about it.

Today, lawyers are attacking more; they're attacking everything. A good example is the O.J. Simpson case.

I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody's work. I like to adapt books.

When I interview people accused of capital offenses, I never even ask if they did it. I would consider that unprofessional.

The O.J. Simpson case, they had no understanding of that DNA evidence, and didn't want to.

Civil servants take forever to do anything.

What I didn't know was that if I didn't stand with my back to the wall, Hollywood people would unscrew my ass and sell it down the river.

As a cop, I dealt with every kind of bum and criminal. They all have more integrity than some Hollywood people.

If you take 67 brush fires times 10 years, that's almost 700 right there. Those brush fires are incredibly dangerous, all those homes going down proved that.

I hadn't done anything in six years; I was just vegetating.

I certainly believe it's over for the jury system, but we won't admit it for a while.

Probably 95 percent of the things that are written never get on the screen.

When I wrote The Onion Field, I realized that my first two novels were just practice.

Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued.

Jury selection is strictly an emotional process. They're looking for people they can manipulate. Both sides are.

I'm sure I took some licks at the system, and at trials and lawyers in general. I've seen enough of them for so many years both as a cop and a defendant in defamation cases.

The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up.

I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.

The Onion Field, that one got pretty close to me because I was a cop when it happened. I saw some of the indifference that my police department showed to the surviving officer.

Civil servants take forever to do anything.

We all respect sincerity in our friends and acquaintances, but Hollywood is willing to pay for it.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created. They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

I've always thought John Travolta is one of the greatest movie stars Hollywood has ever produced.

It could be my downfall, but I don't think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it's suicide.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.

I remember having to take detours around the Hollywood sign to avoid having to see this grotesque poster of myself on Sunset Boulevard.

Hollywood is kind of a bad world.

It's so crazy in Hollywood.

I don't think I ever understood Hollywood.

I came across awful characters when I got some kind of status and came to Hollywood. Then you have directors trying to sleep with you, assuming that you will do things because of the way you dress.

Hollywood is sexist and age-ist, and that covers all the bases, I guess.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Hollywood today is all about being consistent. All thinking in mainstream film business takes place in one box.

Everyone is treating it like a Hollywood story. In Madison, it's a neighborhood story.

Hollywood is what you make it; you have to choose company with care because you become what they are.

Hollywood is a world all its own.

Silence is the sure sign that you're on your way out in Hollywood.

What is the thing that Hollywood demands most? Sincerity. No place in the world will pay such a high price for this admirable trait.

If you can believe it, Hollywood wanted to change my birthdate. I was born after Valentine's Day, so they wanted to change it to February 14. A Latin lover should be born on Valentine's Day. I said no.

In Hollywood if you are not working, you are a leper. True, you are probably living in the most expensive leper colony in the world.

There are plenty of lesbians in Hollywood, but they're not out. And that's their choice, but I can't do that, it's too important to me.

After 13 years of life on the half shell in Hollywood, I have made a trip where I wasn't a tourist.