I want a theory to come out to guide policy.

The first hit on the nervous system is the one I'm most interested in, because I think if you hit the reader emotionally, the reader can't guarantee the lessons they would like to learn.

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

Much of the visualizing is imaginative.

I'm interested in someone who's mired in grief: how do you get back to that thing that makes them warm? Because you know that's in there.

Because I write intuitively and image-by-image and moment-by-moment, my writing has to be powered by feelings and emotions.

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.