George Pelecanos Quotes

Every man in the back of their minds would like to own a bar or a racehorse.

The can’t collect legal taxes from illegal money.

My father, Larry McKelvey, he was the man in Moncks Corner. He ran illegal nightclubs where everyone went, ran around in red leather pants, claimed he partied with Rick James. If you needed anything in Moncks Corner, you saw Larry McKelvey.

Terre Haute. They used to call it 'Terrible Hut' because it was so wide open. Gambling, red light district, speak-easies. I entertained for all the gangsters. Can't name a gangster that didn't come into the place where I worked.

Security here in New York City is still very tight. Hookers in Times Square now are demanding two forms of fake ID.

When I first went to Vegas, there were just high-rollers and gamblers and the wise guys treated you great.

Not only do I like to go to bars because I like to drink, I do like to drink, but I go because who do you see there? Baseball fans.

In city rooms and in the bars where newspeople drink, you can find out what's going on. You can't find it in the papers.

I am of the opinion that there is more high-quality television being produced than at any time in the history of television.

NEW YORK! I [love] U! You're OFFICIALLY the coolest place on the planet!

To say that New York came up to its advance billing would be the baldest of understatements. Being there was like being in heaven without going to all the bother and expense of dying.

Back then, before it became clear that democracy was best served by a drunken electorate, the bars in New York City were required to close on Election Day.

After the bitching I'd done to Abe about going to remote, crappy places, I should have been excited about the prospect of going to Sin City.

For a degenerate like me, Vegas is like a walk down memory lane. Last time I went to Vegas, I went to my old coke dealer's kid's bar mitzvah.

I love nyc. It's the city of my birth and probably the most amazing city on the planet.

New York, New York, - a helluva town, The Bronx is up but the Battery is down.

Las Vegas is a society of armed masturbators/gambling is the kicker here/sex is extra/weird trip for high rollers ... house-whores for winners, hand jobs for the bad luck crowd.

The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.

North Vegas is where you go if you're a hooker turning forty and the syndicate men on the strip decide you're no longer much good for business out there with the high rollers.

When I was the first time for a job in New York, I saw Natalia Vodianova on an oversized billboard in Times Square on a Calvin Klein billboard.

New York city, the incomparable, the brilliant star city of cities, the forty-ninth state, a law unto itself, the Cyclopean Paradox, the inferno with no-out-of bounds, the supreme expression of both the miseries and the splendors of contemporary civilization, the Macedonia of the United States. It meets the most severe test that may be applied to definition of a metropolis - it stays up all night. But also it becomes a small town when it rains.

In Hollywood they say there's no business like show business. In the hood they say there's no business like ho' business.

You can go anywhere in New York. There's always something to do in New York. There's always a place to eat no matter what time it is. There's always a place to work, a place to drink. It's conducive to my lifestyle. I don't know how to drive a car, so I like to be able to walk places.

I'll bet right now most of the youngsters and hot club fans who hear the name Storyville hasn't the least idea that it consisted of some of the biggest prostitutes in the world ... Standing in their doorways nightly in their fine and beautiful negligees -- faintly calling to the boys as they passed their cribs.

New York! I've always wanted to see it and now I've see it. It's true what they say-- it's the most wonderful city in the world.