Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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?
'The Deuce' came about when David Simon and I were put in contact with a guy who, along with his twin brother, owned a couple bars in Times Square.
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 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.
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.
After college, I spent a decade working the kinds of jobs that I write about - bartender, shoe salesman, kitchen man - while voraciously reading novels.
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.
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.
'The Turnaround' isn't even really a crime novel. But you need conflict to make a novel, any kind of novel, and I don't know any other way to do it than crime.
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.
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.
I want to be read. When you write a TV show like 'The Wire,' you've got three to four million readers watching your work. Even Grisham doesn't sell that many books.
The Next Right Thing has humanity, humor, and insight to burn. Author Dan Barden takes the clay of the California hard-boiled novel and shapes it into something new.
Richmond Fontaine bandleader Willy Vlautin writes songs akin to finely composed short stories set in the diners, bars, casinos, and old hotels of Reno and its environs.
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'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 read 'The Washington Post' every day from a very young age. Reading the newspaper taught me how to organize my thoughts on the page. Meaning, it taught me how to write.
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.
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.
'The Deuce' takes a look at the remarkable paradigm of capitalism and labor: where money goes and how it's routed; who has power and who doesn't; who is exploited and who's not.
Every young man's best purchase is his first car, which spells freedom. My first one was a '70 Camaro, springtime gold-over-saddle, a 307 with Hi-jackers and chrome reverse mags.
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.
'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.
Top-shelf fiction, a Crown Royal ride into the heart of Night and New York. Con Lehane's work is reminiscent of the best of Lawrence Block, which is to say that this is very good stuff, indeed.
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.
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.
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.
At 11 years old, in 1968, my job was to deliver food on foot, so I spent my day walking around the city. I had an active imagination, jacked up by movies. I passed the time making up stories and serializing them.
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'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.
The worst kind of novel is one that blames other people for the racial problem in order to make the reader feel good about himself. As if it's only rich white people or Republicans or conservatives who have this disease.
We couldn't have known - who could've predicted what happened in American politics in the 2016? The rise of racism again, or the peeling back of the onion and seeing racism again, was a bit of a surprise in the last couple years.
The most popular American fiction seems to be about successful people who win, and good crime fiction typically does not explore that world. But honestly, if all crime fiction was quality fiction, it would be taken more seriously.
What's more interesting are the dynamics between people that involve hypocrisy or ignoring each other. That's what I want to write about. I like to make people uncomfortable because it's something we should be uncomfortable about.
It would probably surprise people how prevalent reading is in institutions - and the degree to which some states discourage reading by instituting draconian rules and laws that try to limit and outright roadblock books in prisons.
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 do have shout-outs to bands and musicians I like in my books, but the musical references can be misunderstood. Often, I have people listening to music that I would never listen to personally, because it fits and defines their character.
But when I do book signings and personal appearances, the audiences are mostly white. Growing up here, I expected that and understand it. Black audiences won't come out for a white writer for the most part. It really is just a fact of life.
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 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.
The cliche is that Washington is a transient town of people who blow in and out every four years with the new administrations. But the reality is that people have lived in Washington for generations, and their lives are worth examining, I think.
Soon it began to drizzle for the second time that night. The drops grew heavier and became visible in the headlights of the cars. It was said by some of the police on the scene that God was crying for the girl in the garden. To others, it was only rain.
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.
'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 had met many wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when I was researching my 2009 novel 'The Turnaround,' and I continue to be very interested in how returning servicemen and women deal with their new lives back home and how they're treated by America.
My goal is to get a real film industry started in Washington. An actual one, not where features come to town and shoot second unit for a few days. I would love to get something started here. Hire local crews. People could work year-round and raise their families here.
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.
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.
I don't believe that murders can be "solved." I think that this is the big lie of the mystery novel, that you should close the book and feel that the world is back in order and everything's all right. I want the reader to know that the world is not all right, and maybe we ought to do something about it.