A single, ordinary person still can make a difference - and single, ordinary people are doing precisely that every day.

He defined himself almost wholly in the negative: It was not who he was, it was who he was not.

Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine. . .and then make them plausible.

But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?

As a novelist, there are three phone calls you never expect to receive in your lifetime because if you waited for them you would grow despairing - one calling from Stockholm with a Swedish accent, one from the NBA, and one from Oprah Winfrey.

With age comes acumen. With experience comes insight.

The honest answer is more complex. On some level I was sent. Or inspired. Or called. But my calling, such as it was, wasn't a single booming invitation from above (really, is it ever?).