To capture the human cost of fallen empire with all its horror and absurdity, Sheets offers the right combination: the political insight of a top reporter and the power of a novelist.

Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.

Happiness is the maximum agreement of reality and desire.

It was like passing the scene of a highway accident and being relieved to learn that nobody had been seriously injured.

The most beautiful women in the world were African.

As a novelist, I tell stories and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories and I give them money.

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant.