I have had a lot of fun with the American language; it has fascinating idioms, is constantly creative, very much like the English of Shakespeare’s time, its slang and argot are wonderful, and so on. But I have lost Los Angeles. It is no longer the place I knew so well and was almost the first to put on paper. I have the feeling, not very unusual, that I helped create the town and then was pushed out of it by the operators. I can hardly find my way around any longer.

Raymond Chandler c1957, La Jolla, California, in a letter to John Houseman, cited in The Atlantic, August, 1965