It is remarkable indeed how we human beings are capable of delighting in the mating call of a flower while we are surrounded by the charred carcasses of our fellow animals.

I did not grow up in poverty. But I did grow up with a poor boy's sense of longing, in my case not for what my family had never had, but for what we had had and lost.

Capitalism is like the law of the jungle with a few rules. There isn't another system that works for our society but left unchecked, capitalism can have a dehumanising effect.

As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away.

Many boys, probably most boys, have a first love before they fall in love with a woman. It begins the moment two boys realize they'd die for one another, that each cares more for the other than he does for himself, and it lasts usually until a second love comes on the scene, because most hearts aren't big enough to love more than one person like that.

With movement, families get split. With the politicization of religion, spirituality gets diluted. With people intermarrying and falling in love outside of pre-existing defined groups, the tribe is disappearing. I'm not in favor of going back to those things, but you can't take those things away without putting something new in its place. So finding a way to make transience more acceptable, even beautiful is key.

I was 30 when 9/11 happened and I had lived exactly 15 years of life in America, so I was half American. I was a full-fledged New Yorker.