Christy has not been given a fair shake. She has not been identified as a competent premier.

What makes us threaten the things we want most?

The longer you go by yourself the weirder you get, and the weirder you get the longer you go by yourself.

I think fiction is all about the exercise of the empathetic imagination. Part of what I do is let the stuff I read about meld with what I have experienced.

The etiquette of blurbs means it's not hard to not blurb something (if it's not by a friend, or student): everyone knows how many books you're deluged with. You can just say you never got to it.

I think there's a playfulness and a distance to Kavalier and Clay that I don't aspire to in my stuff. Maybe I'm more old-fashioned, and less of a fabulist, in that way.

I think there's no question that historians create; they would tell you that, I think. If I'm trying to imagine an imperial Roman position, it's much easier to imagine the poor schlub who's not even sure why he's doing what he's doing than it is to imagine Caesar. At least for me. And I'm intrigued, too, by the position of the poor schlub who *still* finds himself supporting the imperial project.