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

...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.

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

I adore the work of Stephen Sondheim. I like musicales in general. They make surprisingly great running tapes.

I've gotten to do a lot of stuff, traveled, worked hard at my career.

I like to see writers reach bigger and bigger audiences, and stand-alones have allowed some of them to do just that.

We become comfortable saying that there's nothing new, and then something like Malarky comes along, which is new and old and different and familiar, but ultimately itself, comfortable in its own skin, wise and smart and crazy-sexy or maybe sexy-crazy-well, you just have to read it to understand. It's a novel that sets its own course, sure and steady, even when it seems like it might be about to go over the edge of the world.