When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for me is about twenty-two pages. When it's going badly, it isn't really going badly; it's just the beginning.

Those who are not with Mr. Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall -- just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price.

Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.

I've always had difficulties with female characters.

Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.

There is a big difference between fighting the cold war and fighting radical Islam. The rules have changed and we haven't.