Joseph Wambaugh

“The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up.”

“Civil servants take forever to do anything.”

“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.”

“As a cop, I dealt with every kind of bum and criminal. They all have more integrity than some Hollywood people.”

“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.”

“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.”