Los Angeles Quotes

“The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Of course, in Los Angeles, everything is based on driving, even the killings. In New York, most people don't have cars, so if you want to kill a person, you have to take the subway to their house. And sometimes on the way, the train is delayed and you get impatient, so you have to kill someone on the subway. That's why there are so many subway murders; no one has a car.”
― George Carlin, Brain Droppings

“Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically -- any way you want to look at it -- everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.”
― Michael Connelly, The Brass Verdict

“But you don't need anything. You have everything,' I tell him.
Rip looks at me. 'No I don't.'
'What?'
'No I don't.'
There's a pause and then I ask, 'Oh, shit, Rip, What don't you have?'
'I don't have anything to loose.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero

“I could hear everything, together with the hum of my hotel neon. I never felt sadder in my life. LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; New York gets godawful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.”
― Frank Lloyd Wright

“I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don’t remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is 'Disappear Here' and even though it’s probably an ad for some resort, it still freaks me out a little and I step on the gas really hard and the car screeches as I leave the light.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero

“what's right? If you want something, you have the right to take it. If you want to do something, you have the right to do it.”
― Bret Easton Ellis

“The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.”
― Michael Connelly, The Black Echo

“When its 100 degrees in New York, it's 72 in Los Angeles. When its 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it's still 72. However, there are 6 million interesting people in New York, and only 72 in Los Angeles.”
― Neil Simon

“It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them aren't even young and beautiful now.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“That wasn't Josh Hartnett; that kid was eighteen years old," Kate said.

I told you, they age slower out here. It's all the fresh California air," Val replied.

Yes, because that's exactly what Los Angeles is known for," Kate said dryly. "Clean air.”
― Julie James, Just the Sexiest Man Alive

“The smog was heavy, my eyes were weeping from it, the sun was hot, the air stank, a regular hell is L.A.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

“The old folk from Indiana and Iowa and Illinois, from Boston and Kansas City and Des Moines, they sold their homes and their stores, and they came here by train and by automobile to the land of sunshine, to die in the sun, with just enough money to live until the sun killed them, tore themselves out by the roots in their last days, deserted the smug prosperity of Kansas City and Chicago and Peoria to find a place in the sun. And when they got here they found that other and greater thieves had already taken possession, that even the sun belonged to the others; Smith and Jones and Parker, druggist, banker, baker, dust of Chicago and Cincinnati and Cleveland on their shoes, doomed to die in the sun, a few dollars in the bank, enough to subscribe to the Los Angeles Times, enough to keep alive the illusion that this was paradise, that their little papier-mâché homes were castles.”
― John Fante, Ask the Dust

“Even though I grew up two hours south, I had rarely ventured to Los Angeles. I soon learned that my dad wasn't totally off base when he said, "Los Angeles is like San Diego's older, uglier sister that has herpes." . . . "Remember. Family," he said. "Also, how do I get back to I-5? I hate this fucking city.”
― Justin Halpern, Sh*t My Dad Says

“I imagined that my own life was simple and sweet, and sometimes it was, but there were odd things going around town. There were rumors. There were stories. Everything was unmentionable but nothing was unimaginable. This mystical flirtation with the idea of “sin"–this sense that it was possible to go "too far”, and that many people were doing it–this was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969. A demented and seductive vortical tension was building in the community. The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full.”
― Joan Didion, The White Album

“What does she do?"
"She's a producer." Of course, in Los Angeles this doesn't mean much more than "she's a member of the human race.”
― Julian Fellowes, Past Imperfect

“What do you do?' she asks, holding out the vest.
'What do you do?'
'What do you do?' she asks, her voice shaking. 'Don't ask me, please. Okay, Clay?'
'Why not?'
She sits on the mattress after I get up. Muriel screams.
'Because... I don't know,' she sighs.
I look at her and don't feel anything and walk out with my vest.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero

“Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there because the town is, perhaps even creditably, committed to recognising only professional success, and nothing else, to be of lasting value. The burdensome obligation imposed on all its inhabitants is therefore to present themselves as successes, because otherwise they forfeit their right to respect in that environment ... There is no place in that town for the "interesting failure" or for anyone who is not determined on a life that will be shaped in a upward-heading curve.”
― Julian Fellowes, Past Imperfect

“I do love America. And LA is a very short commute to America its like half an hour on the plane.”
― craig ferguson

“Oslo probably owed them money. Sockeye Sammy’s shiner testified that it might not be a good idea to stiff his employer. But if I couldn’t pay up, I’d surely make myself scarce, too!”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?”
― Herb Caen

“My life had turned into a Raymond Chandler detective story and there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop its precipitous slide.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Jolly Jay rested the Louisville Slugger on his shoulder, as if he were Thor or some other god-like warrior who had come down from the heavens to our Deus ex machina rescue.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“From inside the cooler, Duke pounded on the door one, last time: “Let me outta here!”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Just so we’re straight,” I said confidentially, staring into his lazy eyes, a stupid smile on his sophomoric, look-I-can-grow-a-mustache-now face. “I don’t like you.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“As if some kind of demon were racking his brain, Curley Joe stood in front of the jukebox with a small, silver handgun still pointed at the hole its bullet had blown through the shattered Plexiglas.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Any weapons or drugs, Mr. Hepp?” she asked.
“No. Of course not.”
She continued to look inside the car at the back seat. “What’s in the briefcase?”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Oh, we’ll see you again, Mike. Just not with the same, pretty face. I hear you’re an actor, too. Pity. Your days of wooing leading ladies are about to end.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“I know when someone’s trying to get me in bed, babe,” she huffed, crossing her arms under her breasts. “They were acting all giggly about it, trying to buy me shots at the bar to get me drunk.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night