Everyone holds a certain type of power. For young people, it's their youth, their attractiveness, and their energy. But they're terrified that as those qualities fade, what are they going to replace that form of power with?

The world of American politics is more contentious than it has ever been in my lifetime.

The bad news is we don't have any control. The good news is we can't make any mistakes.

Nevertheless, if you ask me, most people have children just as their own enthusiasm about life begins to wane. A child allows us to revisit the excitement we once felt about, well... everything. A generation later, our grandkids bump up our enthusiasm yet again. Reproducing is a kind of booster shot to keep us loving life.

With the novels, I usually start from something in my own life that I can't resolve, so I turn it into a metaphor and for months or sometimes years I'll exhaust all of my emotional reaction to this issue by making it enormous on the page.

Parenthood is the opiate of the masses.

We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.