Artists are in the imagining/ prototyping business. Society needs people to be out there thinking of what might be. That cannot be something we just delegate to politicians or technologists.

The ban on the burkini, which is basically a wetsuit, seems particularly ridiculous.

As a writer, I am constantly aware that I take my life in my hands with everything I do and say. It's just a fact of life. For me it always has been.

A beard is something that is almost like a mirror to the viewer. When someone sees you wearing a beard, they're seeing something in their own imagination because it's still me whether I'm bearded or not.

In Italian, the word for novel is romanzo, "the romance." The English is "novel" - something new. Both of those elements, experimentation and love, are fundamental to the form.

We think of the romance novel as a lesser form of literature, but I don't think that's true. Love is a very important aspect of human life and worth exploring.

Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted underground sewers, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians.