Now I basically just read spy stories because they're about solving a puzzle within the constraints of history. It's the tick tock, the clockwork that I'm interested in.

I'm convinced that ideas and behaviors and new products move through a population very much like a disease does.

If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.

Performance ought to improve with experience, and pressure is an obstacle that the diligent can overcome.

In the act of tearing something apart, you lose its meaning.

What interests me about fiction is plot. And what interests me about plot is whether someone tells a story that moves me within the constraints of storytelling. And I have narrowly defined storytelling.

I interviewed one of the most powerful lawyers in the world and he told me, "At the time, it was the worst thing in the world not to be able to get a job at a fancy law firm, but it's the greatest thing that ever happened in my life." It was a humble acknowledgment of how forces much larger than himself shaped his career. I really wanted to bring that point home.