And with a last stardrop, a last circle, I arrive, and she's there, chemical wonder in her eyes.

Americans need to educate themselves, from elementary school onward, about what their country has done abroad. And they need to play a more active role in ensuring that what the United States does abroad is not merely in keeping with a foreign policy elite's sense of realpolitik but also with the American public's own sense of American values.

We're being subject to incredible amounts of surveillance, the police are taking on draconian powers and violating our rights. I think this attempt to protect ourselves is ultimately going to founder because people don't like living inside prisons.

If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants.

I believe one can gauge a book's impact only after about 10 years.

The gun of the father is always the undoing of the son.

I responded to the gravity of an invisible moon at my core, and I undertook journeys I had not expected to take.