I'm proud of 'Miracle at St. Anna' and I loved it; there's no question in my mind it's as good as any movie that came out in 2007.

I just read history books. I read nothing but history books. They have so much to give; I wish I'd majored in history in college.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

There has to be some mystery in life, because the joy of being a writer and the joy of being a musician is the joy of discovery. I don't want someone discovering for me what I should be discovering on my own. If a person is discovering for me, then they're living for me. It's my responsibility, indeed it's my privilege, to go out and discover the world for myself.

If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.

...since I was a little boy, she had always wanted me to go. She was always sending me off on a bus someplace, to elementary school, to camp, to relatives in Kentucky, to college. She pushed me away from her just as she'd pushed my elder siblings away when we lived in New York, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college.

So sweet and precious is family life.