Americans don't have saner gun laws because most Americans, including those citizens who puzzle over better angels, don't want saner gun laws.

I started reading literature at 17 or 18, and I felt this extra beat to life.

I don't want to be taken to Bhutan and smell the flowers. I want to be told something I couldn't have been told any other way.

I didn't read a serious book until I was 19.

I'm kind of a distractible guy.

Most things don't stay the way they are for very long. I take nothing for granted and try to be ready for the change that's soon to come.

A reader is entitled to believe what he or she believes is consonant with the facts of the book. It is not unusual that readers take away something that is spiritually at variance from what I myself experienced. That's not to say readers make up the book they want. We all have to agree on the facts. But readers bring their histories and all sets of longings. A book will pluck the strings of those longings differently among different readers.