When I was in high school, I was in a special math class. I was infatuated with physics, particularly nuclear physics, Einstein, and the Big Bang. I read a lot about black holes. And partly because I'm so lazy I thought you could do all this just by looking at the sky and thinking up universes. It didn't seem like hard work when I was a kid, so I enrolled in this class.

I cannot think of a country in which I would be happy with the government and dominant ideology and available propaganda.

I don't know the numbers, but roughly half of the people who came through Ellis Island returned home. They came here to make money, not to make history.

My skin was the border between the world and me.

I want to change something. I want to stop the germs from attacking my daughters.

I do believe - and I know I shouldn't - that art transcends money and success and any of that. You can still do it if you're not clinging to the notion of nobility.

It was always clear to me that I would have to earn my readers, some I would have to find, some to create.