Joseph Wambaugh Quotes
"When I wrote The Onion Field, I realized that my first two novels were just practice."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: First, Practice)
"When I interview people accused of capital offenses, I never even ask if they did it. I would consider that unprofessional."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: People)
"The time has come for professional jurors."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Time)
"What is it about the component of fire? People have written about it. People have wondered about it."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: People, Fire)
"Jury selection is strictly an emotional process. They're looking for people they can manipulate. Both sides are."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: People, Jury)
"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."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Right, Years)
"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."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Lawyers, Trials, Years)
"I hadn't done anything in six years; I was just vegetating."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Years)
"I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Being, Pleasure, Research)
"I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody's work. I like to adapt books."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Work, Books)
"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."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: People, Hollywood)
"Probably 95 percent of the things that are written never get on the screen."
- Joseph Wambaugh
"The O.J. Simpson case, they had no understanding of that DNA evidence, and didn't want to."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Understanding, Want)
"The Onion Field made a real writer. And then I knew it was over, I couldn't be a cop anymore."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Writer)
"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."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Indifference, Police, Pretty)
"The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up."
- Joseph Wambaugh
"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."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Experience)
"Today, lawyers are attacking more; they're attacking everything. A good example is the O.J. Simpson case."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Example, Lawyers, Today)
"I certainly believe it's over for the jury system, but we won't admit it for a while."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Jury)
"As a cop, I dealt with every kind of bum and criminal. They all have more integrity than some Hollywood people."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: People, Hollywood, Integrity)
"Civil servants take forever to do anything."
- Joseph Wambaugh
"Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued."
- Joseph Wambaugh
(Related: Time)