George Pelecanos

“My favorite movies are from the '70s.”

“Kids need a father around to make them whole. They need their mom.”

“I'm a fast driver.”

“I've been working in adult prisons and juvenile prisons for some time.”

“I was heavily into John D. MacDonald.”

“I'm more apt to shed a tear than my wife about family matters.”

“'Random Rules' kicks off 'American Water,' and from its opening line - 'In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection' - you know you're in for something strange and special.”

“There's a science to brain development. The brains of teenage boys are crowded with impulse and adrenaline. By the time they hit their 20s, their brains are dominated by conscience and reason.”

“In its rather clinical view of death, 'True Grit' rivals the hardboiled world of 'Red Harvest'-era Dashiell Hammett and prefigures Cormac McCarthy by 20 years.”

“I'd get off the set of 'The Wire' at 3 A.M. or even 4 A.M. and drive home to Washington to see my kids sleep and give them a kiss. I'd get up at 7 A.M., while the kids were still in bed, and drive back to Baltimore.”

“If the storytellers told it true, all stories would end in death.”

“I do miss the Chocolate City of my youth.”

“There is nothing like the rumble of a dual-piped American car with something under the hood.”

“For many years, I did ride-alongs with patrol cops, which is any citizen's right.”

“I was a child in the '60s and a teenager in the '70s, which was the golden age of film as far as I'm concerned, between American film and the Italian reinvention of genre film.”

“I get chills when I think that there's a statue of Phil Lynott on a street in Dublin, that people leave flowers by the statue. I love stuff like that.”

“My sons are black, and my daughter is Latina.”

“I'm intrigued by people who make their modest living doing good things for others. Teachers, nonprofit workers, librarians... those are the heroes in our society.”

“It's relatively easy to adopt kids if you're not trying to get kids that look exactly like you.”

“There was a hole in Washington fiction, I felt, when I started out. Most D.C. novels were about politics or the federal city or people who lived in Georgetown or Chevy Chase - it was definitely a very narrow focus.”