At night we are all strangers, even to ourselves.

We should be careful of the insults we fling at others, lest they return and land at our feet, newly minted to apply to those who had first coined them.

The Culture of Complaint... We live in a culture of complaint because everyone is always looking for things to complain about. It's all tied in with the desire to blame others for misfortunes and to get some form of compensation into the bargain.

I've always had a creative urge and I get immense satisfaction from creating something because it feels like I'm making sense of the world and imposing order on it.

As a writer I've learned certain lessons. One of them is to be careful about how you put a view, and to bear in mind how easily and readily you'll be misinterpreted.

I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.

Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.