At bottom, I'm a cheerful person.

People were always hungry, bullied, afraid, paranoid - so I just thought I'd show that in the novel in a kind of suffocating way.

People seem very comfortable having a kind of Cheesecake Factory-type of life.

I usually feel something before I know it.

I try to be even-handed and fair-minded about my view of history. I don't romanticize one side and demonize the other, though I do think that if you're suffering a lot, especially in the Bob Marley sense, suffering becomes a kind of university out of which you'll learn some hard lessons.

With kids, they force you to get out of bed. They force you to smile. They remind you of spontaneity.

People who are suffering have to visualize ways out of tragedy to actually get out of it.