Michael Connelly Quotations

I may sound facetious but I really think these stories are all interrelated and therefore really only one series.

When I am so intensely involved with writing my books I don't like to reread them.

When I was a teenager, I was a voracious reader of crime fiction, but only contemporary books.

As a reporter, you develop an ear for dialogue because it's your job to capture it accurately.

I was enamored of detectives as a teenager. I liked what they did - piecing things together, thinking about situations. But to get there? Eight to ten years in a patrol car? I didn't have that in me. I didn't want to tell people what to do.

The character can never be static from book to book. People might think you just come up with a new plot and stick this guy in. Well, he has to be as new as the plot every time.

I've been able to write at least one book a year for 20 years, and I don't think I would've had that kind of drive if I hadn't come out of the journalism business.

The writing ethic was influenced - when you have to write every day, there's no such thing as writer's block.

Maybe it has something to do with being a reporter for a long time that I don't look to newspapers and television and so forth for inspiration most of the time.

The built-in form is a window frame. You can use this genre [crime fiction] to go where you want to go, and explore what you want to explore. In some ways it gives you a lot of freedom because you have a framework readers are looking for.