Writing fiction is an inherently political activity because people-even imaginary ones-do not live in vacuums... From Twilight to Romeo and Juliet to The Little Mermaid, no work of the imagination is truly apolitical, because the world and our hopes for it are always part of our stories.

I mean, he was something that happened to me, you know? But before he was this minor figure in the drama of my life he was - you know, the central figure in the drama of his own life.

I knew that I would know more dead people. The bodies pile up. Could there be a space in my memory for each of them, or would I forget a little of Alaska every day for the rest of my life?

I didn't know whether to trust Alaska, and I'd certainly had enough of her unpredictability - cold one day, sweet the next; irresistibly flirty one moment, resistibly obnoxious the next. I preferred the Colonel: At least when he was cranky, he had a reason.

What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.

I realized during my time as a chaplain that I didn't want to be a minister.

Nothing really mattered that much, not the good things and not the bad ones. We were in the business of mutual amusement, and we were reasonably prosperous.