Source: Salon Interview: James Ellroy, 1996:

Well, I write in a cultural vacuum, so I don’t understand what’s out there in the culture too much.

You don’t watch TV?

I watch boxing on TV and I listen to classical music. I talk with my wife a lot and exercise. Culture to me is just shit in the brain. I just hate it when I tour overseas and people want me to talk about Quentin Tarantino. I’ve offered a lot of flagrantly abusive opinions about modern popular culture, and I’ve put the skids to it. I just don’t know what it is. I like to think. I like to lie in the dark and brood about things. I have a good idea where my own writing career is going. I have no idea where American culture is going. I really don’t. I mean, I don’t even know who the good guys are in the Serbo-Croatian war. I don’t know who we’re supporting.

I finished My Dark Places this weekend and a more harrowing, raw, and unflinchingly confessional piece of writing I can’t think of. It’s got me thinking.