George Pelecanos
'Treme' begins after Hurricane Katrina, and it's a year-by-year account of how everyday people there put their lives back together. It's sort of a testament to, or an argument for why, a great American city like New Orleans needs to be saved and preserved.
I always overtip. When I go to England, people think I'm stupid.
I live in a bigger house, but I still live in the neighbourhood I grew up in.
Until a book starts forming in your head, you always wonder, 'Am I going to be able to do this again?'
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 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.
Kids need a father around to make them whole. They need their mom.
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.
Is there a more violent book than the Bible?
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 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.
'True Grit' is one of the few books my sons let me read to them - and paid attention to - when they were younger.
I'm proudly a crime writer, but it would be really inaccurate to call me a mystery writer.
I've been working in adult prisons and juvenile prisons for some time.
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.
What we were all always saying with 'The Wire' was that there's a whole group of people that America just sort of wants to throw away. They want to forget about them, and if they could, they'd get rid of them. They are Americans - they're worth saving; they're worth helping.
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.
I'm a very sentimental, emotional person.
I'm more apt to shed a tear than my wife about family matters.
I never went to a writing school, so 'The Wire' was my writing school.
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.
I'm a fast driver.
I go to church for the cultural element. It's where you go to see Greek people once a week. It's real important to me, and I hope my children see they're part of something bigger than just this family.
People want to see the world the way they want to see it, not the way it is.
When I was a teenager, I thought if any of my friends or people at school see me reading a book, they're gonna think I'm weak. So I didn't even do it in private. Then I grew up, got into college, and the teachers turned me on to books, and I got hooked.
As far as I'm concerned, the voices of Washington, black Washington, it's poetry, man. There's beauty in it.
My father's diner, the Jefferson Coffee Shop, was a simple, 27-seat affair in Washington D.C., open for breakfast and lunch - coffee and eggs in the morning, cold cuts and burgers in the afternoon.
Many fathers and sons never get to reconcile their differences or come to an understanding that fills the gap between love and expectations.
I'm forever grateful to have had the opportunity to prove myself to my dad. After I took over the diner, the look in my father's eyes went from disappointment to respect.
I was a movie freak before I was a book lover.
Movies were the biggest influence on me when I was a kid.
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 do feel like that's what a writer does, is he goes into other people's heads.
It's relatively easy to adopt kids if you're not trying to get kids that look exactly like you.
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.
I like writing about people who spend their time trying to help others for the greater good. That's what Americans are supposed to be about, right?
People like to talk to me. I don't know why.
Reading opens your mind and helps you understand and empathize with people who are unlike you and outside your breadth of experience.
I've seen firsthand how books can change people's lives. It happened to me.
When I was a kid in the '60s, I went shopping in downtown Silver Spring. Hecht's, JCPenney, the little retailers - they sponsored all my sports teams.
My take on gentrification and change is it's usually always a better thing, because when you see all these businesses open and flourishing, that means there are more jobs.
Where I live, there are a lot of businesses owned by Ethiopians and Eritreans. They're the new immigrants, the new Greeks - what my people did. The next generation of these people will probably be college graduates. That's how it works, right there in front of your eyes.
My sons are black, and my daughter is Latina.
I'm a strong believer in second chances.
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.
Every day I'm not working or writing is a wasted day to me.
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.
My favorite movies are from the '70s.
The thirst for knowledge is like a piece of ass you know you shouldn't chase; in the end, you chase it just the same.Collection: Pieces