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When someone hears that I've written a book about 1897, I'm usually met with blank stares. And the first thing they say is, 'Was there even an L.A. back then?' A lot of people don't even think there was a city before the movies appeared. That concept of Los Angeles is so strong in the popular imagination that celebrity overrides everything.

Some of the higher price of L.A. real estate does reflect the intrinsic pleasure of living there, as I'm reminded every time I walk out my door into the perfect weather.

Just because I live in L.A .and I live in Hollywood doesn't mean I have to have a Hollywood life.

I kept saying that I'd never live in L.A., and I didn't think I would. But that's where the work is, and I ended up making a lot of friends there, and my old friends moved out to Los Angeles too. And also, I think when you're famous, its hard to live in a small town.

I don't really know anything about the movie business, even though I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life - somehow I've never bumped into it.

I think the choice of actors that we have is a little more varied and rich here in New York than in L.A.

A lot of people come to Los Angeles and think that they're going to be famous, just like that.

In 'Property,' none of the characters are based on any real people, but the house is very much the house that I moved into in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

If you've driven over to the gay section of Los Angeles, it's like a golf course... Real estate values go 'boom!'

I always had this childhood image in the back of my mind of this fantastic place where all the things I liked came from; Orson Welles, jazz, all that stuff. Los Angeles is one of those places where somebodies become nobodies and nobodies become somebody.