George Pelecanos

I was 15 years old in 1972, and yeah, when the 1970s broke, I was out there. Everything was kinda swirling around me - the music, women, cars, the culture. ”

When I was 19, my dad got sick, and I quit college to take over his business, a coffee shop on 19th Street, below Dupont Circle in D.C. I had been working there since I was 11 years old, so it was not a stretch to think that I could do it, but my record as a teenager, in many respects, was less than stellar. ”

It's a tradition that a writer will try to plant his flag in a certain city and protect that. The way to get your rep is to find the essence of the city and get it down on paper. ”

Incarcerated individuals want what most people want in a novel: good, honest writing and a story well told. ”

Sometimes I think 'The Wire' said it all, and I might as well not write any more crime novels. ”

I used to sit in my pickup truck at 7 o'clock in the morning outside my office and listen to the Replacements or something full blast, thinking, 'What am I doing here?' ”

I don't judge anyone of any stripe by what they read. Reading is always good for you. It's a positive act. ”

I've just been very interested in the living side of Washington, rather than the federal side, since I was a kid. ”

I never went to school for writing, never took a writing class, but when you're in a room with David Simon and Ed Burns and Dennis Lehane and Richard Price, and they're going over something you've written, you learn what works and what doesn't. ”

I find 'True Grit' to be one of the very best American novels: It is a rousing adventure story and deeply perceptive about the makeup of the American character. ”