Reading for writers is like training for athletes.

I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work into their own lives.

Most writers adore their editors, and I'm no exception.

With a book called 'Keeping Score,' I really did want to write a book about the Korean War, because I felt that it is the least understood war in the American cultural imagination. So I set out with the idea that Americans didn't know much about the Korean War and that I was going to try to fix a tiny bit of that.

I do think that part of literature's job is to comment on and participate in the social issues of the time.

I can give advice to anyone interested in writing in one word: Read! I think it's much more important to be a reader than to be a writer!

Reading for writers is like training for athletes.