I can see criticizing, complaining, protesting - anything but choosing not to vote. Too many people died for us not to vote.

The point of Berlin was that it seemed that only people like you ran the city. You never ran into people who weren't like you - especially when you lived as that kind of American in Berlin connected to the arts.

You can get away with anything as long as it works.

I think at the beginning of one's writing life, negative reviews are what one does to get attention and stake out your territory. It's also often a mistake.

What happened after World War I was disgraceful. Most veterans, like my great-uncle, were squashed back into place. Congress couldn't pass an anti-lynching bill. The World War II generation, though, wasn't going to take it.

Obama can't be everything to everyone. He changed. He did. I never thought I'd hear Obama say, "Let's go back to nuclear arms," but he did. In the meantime, the clear and present danger is the Republicans in the Senate. A lot of politics isn't heroic, it's as day-to-day as our lives themselves. We always want to make the Byronic choices, but Byron himself was not Byronic all the time either.

If you're bored, your readers will be bored. If you're faking it, you won't get the kind of readers you want.