The truth was stranger than the official fiction.

Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love.

More to the point, I know why soldiers, home from war, seldom tell their families about their exploits in more than general terms. We who survive must go on in the names of those who fall, but if we dwell too much on the vivid details of what we've witnessed of man's inhumanity to man, we simply can't go on. perseverance is impossible if we don't permit ourselves to hope.

But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within. You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.

When I'm working on a novel, I work 70-hour weeks.

In this age, lies were the universal lubricant of the culture. A love of Truth and commitment to it were seldom rewarded and were often punished.

Only time conquers time and its burdens.