George Pelecanos

Guys who feel like it makes you a man to make babies, they're completely misguided. It makes you a man to be a father. And I'm not moralising about marriage or anything. I understand that people split up, and marriages don't work out, and people do the best they can. But if you're going to not be there from the very beginning, then don't do it. ”

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. ”

I was really rudderless at one point my life. And once I started reading books, then I got the idea that maybe I could become a writer. I had a goal. And every day when I got up, there was a reason. ”

Reading opens your mind and helps you understand and empathize with people who are unlike you and outside your breadth of experience. ”

My father was a Marine who fought in the Pacific in WW II. He was a very tough guy, but after the war, he lived his life in a quiet and reserved manner because he had nothing to prove. I know now that he internalized his war experience. ”

I love writing books, but it's a solitary experience. When I'm on a film set, I'm with a bunch of other artists working together to make one thing. ”

My senior year at College Park, University of Maryland, I took an elective class in crime fiction taught by Charles C. Mish. He turned me on in a big way to reading and books. I was lucky to have a teacher who changed the course of my life. ”

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. ”

Movies were the biggest influence on me when I was a kid. ”

I even dream about writing. I'm talking seeing words across the page, whole paragraphs. ”