We don't know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don't always appreciate their fragility.

As a writer, I know that - you write a first draft and then put it in a drawer. The longer I can put it in a drawer, the better off I am. So I structure my writing so that things can sit.

I don't really collect books. I tend to lose interest in them the minute I've read them, so most of the books I've read are left in airplanes and hotel rooms.

People at CDC [Centers for Disease Control] who cut their teeth on diseases over the last 10 years have started to think of crime as another disease, and using some of these same concepts. It was something that was in the air in that world, but it was time to bust it out and apply it to any number of different social epidemics.

Policy is driven by more than politics, however. It is equally driven by ideas.

The act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty.

I think that persistence and stubbornness and hard work are probably, at the end of the day, more important than the willingness to take a risk.