When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.

If there were Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, it makes it certain there would be a reprisal attack against the United States at some point.

I think, in a written novel, the way in which you play with the readers' emotion or the way in which you engage the readers' emotions can be very indirect. You could come at it through irony or comedy, etcetera, and you could capture people's sympathies and feelings kind of by stealth if you like.

Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it's not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.

Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes.

If I were asked for a one-sentence sound bite on religion, I would say I was against it.

The problem of telling contemporary history is that your message gets outdated.