Listening takes practice, and it takes patience. But I promise, if you listen, your story will be better for it.

I guess I've always been an aspiring novelist. I went to Princeton and wrote a novel for my thesis.

The novel remains a very special form for me.

We're not allowed to carry out harsh interrogations anymore, but we're allowed to fly over somebody's village, without due process, and kill them all?

I'm a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

I have a ways to go as a novelist. But what's great is, well, I frankly enjoyed the solitude. And I enjoyed being able to tell characters what to say and do without negotiating with an actor.

In a novel, the only budgetary limitations are that of your imagination.