Experience as much as you can and absorb a lot of reality. Otherwise, your writing will have the force of a Wiffle ball.

I find that the creative side of my brain and the archival side of my brain don't work well together. When I've done my best work, I've been in a trance-like state.

The people who seem to have a lock on power get swept out in a couple of years. So it's naïve to keep swinging at the same targets over and over. It took me a long time to realize, but most of the shackles that I flailed against were just illusory.

I guess I started to realize that being an agnostic was such a wimpy position.

As a John Kerry supporter, I wanted to send him a check. But then it occurred to me that most of that money would end up in the hands of advertising agencies and television networks. And the money would be used to create deceptive commercials that flatter our point of view and shade the facts our way. And I wasn't comfortable with that. But on the other hand, that's how the game is played. You're always grappling.

There's absolutely no way that something I do on my own is going to be seen in Malaysia.

For me, marriage is a grotesque, unforgiving, clunky contrivance. Yet society pushes it as a shimmering ideal.