In fact, I think every book I've written has been inspired by a real event.

it's smarter to be lucky than it's lucky to be smart.

There are, of course, an infinite number of places where one is not, yet only one place where one actually is.

I'm a morning person, which is a hideous thing to be. No one likes morning people, not even other morning people.

I think Baltimore suffers from nostalgia and it keeps us from being honest in talking about what really happened here. A place doesn't have to be perfect to be beloved, and I love this city and I love it better for seeing its flaws.

I'm at the age most people are sending their kids off to college.

...Baltimore. It's imperfect. Boy, is it imperfect. And there are parts of its past that make you wince. It's not all marble steps and waitresses calling you 'hon,' you know. Racial strife in the sixties, the riots during the Civil War. F. Scott Fitzgerald said it was civilized and gay, rotted and polite. The terms are slightly anachronistic now, but I think he was essentially right.