My role relationship to the event will continue to mutate. My relationship to my mother will continue to change as I revise my judgments of her depending on what I learn about her. It goes on. But I feel no less obsessive about my work and no less passionately committed to the life I have now, but I feel poised inside. Which is a good thing to feel at 48.

I learn things late-and only the hard way.

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.

We do. Or re-create the ones we have, and project. My whole life is projection.

The lunatic populism that preceded the Pearl Harbor bombing is astonishing in its permutations, its crisscrossings. Guys like [Catholic priest and controversial radio broadcaster] Father Coughlin and [racist and anti-Semitic agitator and founder of the Christian Nationalist Crusade] Gerald L.K. Smith started out as share-the-wealth socialists.

Some people don’t respond to civility.

It was easy not to think of my future; I didn't have one.