Anyone can love a perfect place. Loving Baltimore takes some resilience.

There was nothing more dangerous than people convinced of their own good intentions.

Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being.

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

I think I'm part of a generation of crime writers all of whom woke up independently and recoiled with horror at the fact that we'd chosen this very conservative genre.

stinginess seemed instinctive to him. Darwinian even. He hadn't gotten to his current size by sharing.

There's always time to read. Don't trust a writer who doesn't read. It's like eating food prepared by a cook who doesn't eat.

Children can be happy when their parents are miserable. But a parent is never happier than her unhappiest child.

Whatever you want, at any moment, someone else is getting it. Whatever you have, someone else is longing for.

Reporting is pretty vital to me. It keeps me connected to the world. A 40-hour-per-week day job may be less feasible as time goes on.

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

People don't do me much good.

What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago.

The problem isn't that we have bodies; the problem is that we're not living in them.

Every step I take, I am alive. I am Life.

Why do people have to build such depressing places? I'm not saying that every nook and cranny of the world has to be beautiful, but does it have to be this ugly?

Colonialism has a bad reputation in the modern context, but Colonial Africa was a far better place for both black and white before the colonists gave up.

You know, larger-than-life politicians have larger-than-life strengths and larger-than-life weaknesses.

Since President Bush took office, we have lost 3 million more good jobs.

Trav, if you cross us -- " "I know. You'll get me. I'll try not to pee all over myself in terror.

The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies. -Norah, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist