The future looks like gasoline. . . . crude oil . . . is the future before it has been refined. It is like a dream of the future, really, and like any dream it ends with a rude awakening.

Life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.

I do think it is harder to acknowledge our strengths, or to forgive ourselves and each other for our shortcomings, when there has not been a result we can all agree on. And it is certainly impossible to imagine forgiving the enemy while their animus remains undefeated. Yet war doesn't end with armistice, it only ends with forgiveness and reconciliation.

I'm a much better writer for being a father.

They say that in the hour before an earthquake the clouds hang leaden in the sky, the winds slows to a hot breath, and the birds fall quiet in the trees of the town square. Yes but these are the same portents that precede lunchtime, frankly.

WWII was, without exaggeration, the biggest event in all of human history, and it is still within living memory.

I think the recent cluster of WWII novels is so good because we have reached an optimal distance from the war. Just as a lens has its focal length, the novel also has its best distance from the action.