The most interesting people are never perfect.

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

You have to get inside the people you are writing about. You have to go below the surface. And that's to a very large degree what all writers are doing - they're trying to get below the surface. Whether it's in fiction or poetry or writing history and biography. Some people make that possible because they write wonderful letters and diaries. And you have to sort of go where the material is.

A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.

I feel very strongly that history is about everything. It isn't just about politics or the military or social issues. If art, music, engineering, science, medicine, finance, the world of architecture and technology - if those are left out, then you're not getting a full sense of the human condition. History is human and we human beings are involved in all kinds of things and that's part of our humanity.

The great thing about the arts is that you can only learn to do it by doing it.

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.