It is slightly chilling to realize there are rational, functional people up there employed to spot, nurture, and exploit those down here among us who are irrational and can barely cope. If you want to know how stupid you’re perceived to be by the people up there, count the unsolicited junk mail you receive. If you get a lot, you’re perceived to be alluringly stupid.

Trying to solve the mystery is what I enjoy most about writing.

It is an awful lot harder, Tony told me, to convince people you're sane than it is to convince them you're crazy.

No, people back home don't realize why there is this kind of need for heroes in America at the moment. People in Britain don't really understand what's going on here. They don't understand why Camp X-ray exists.

I'm not what you'd call a fearless type of person.

Sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.

I wasn't in any way a kind of soothsayer or not surprised when Sept. 11 happened. I was absolutely shocked.