There's more private security in the United States than there are publicly funded forces, like police. What you don't want is a meld of government and commerce - you really want to keep those two things separate - because once you have that meld, you've got megacorruption, and you have no third force to whom you can say this stuff is poisoning our kids.

Forgiving men is so much easier than forgiving women.

Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?

Canada, at the moment, is going through a Lord of the Rings moment. Having been a lowly Hobbit with furry feet and fun parties, with fireworks and beer, it has now been handed the Ring of Power: a large supply of fossil fuel, in the form of oil/tar sand and coal. Will it shrivel into an evil RingWraith? Will it become an addicted Golum? Will it refuse the Ring, like Galadriel, fearful of what So Much Power (in both senses of the word) will do to its inner being? Will it try to deal with the Ring responsibly, like Gandalf? Will it side with the Ents?

The use of "religion" as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

Neither of us says the word love, not once. It would be tempting fate; it would be romance, bad luck.