We vary greatly in the natural advantages that we've been given. The world's not fair

Since becoming a journalist, each time I engage with subjects I become more radicalized.

Science fiction annoyed me because it was like, "Why is the world as it is not enough for you?"

Living a long life, the conventional wisdom at the time said, depended to a great extent on who we were-that is, our genes. It depended on the decisions we made-on what we chose to eat, and how much we chose to exercise, and how effectively we were treated by the medical system. No one was used to thinking about health in terms of community.

What we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. It sounds a little trite, but there's a powerful amount of truth in that, I think.

I write my books to challenge my own feelings and theories. Perhaps most surprising was what I learned about rice farming. It was really interesting to think of how different Asian and Western cultures are as a result of the kinds of agricultural practices that our ancestors used for thousands of years. The life of a Chinese peasant in the Middle Ages was so dramatically different from the life of a European peasant - night and day different.

We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail.