Living on a planet of fixed size requires compromise, and while we are the only party capable of negotiating, we are not the only party at the table. We've never claimed more, and we've never had less.

None of the ways people were talking about September 11 felt right to me. I don't buy into the way George W. Bush talks about it. I don't buy into the way the 9/11 commission talks about it. It isn't that I don't believe them. It's just that they're not the tellings for me.

Everything else happened - why not the things that could have?

I was of the opinion that the past is past, and like all that is not now it should remain buried along the side of our memories.

Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!

What does it remember like?

Even if I don't like what I am, I know what I am. My children like what they are, but they don't know what they are. So tell me which is worse.