In the end, I always act from the heart, even if I also value reason and tradition. I wish I could explain why, but I don't know.

It touched me to be trusted with something terrible.

I wondered why she craved this knowledge and found myself remembering that she was, after all, an anthropologist.

If there is any good in life, in history, in my own past, I invoke it now. I invoke it with all the passion with which I have lived.

My publishers are wonderful because they have let me write what I wanted to. They're wise enough to know that, with any author who's not simply writing formulas - who's trying to create something new - pressuring them to do something for market purposes almost always backfires. I can't imagine working under those circumstances, actually.

In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called "by myself"; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.

As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.