I look at the great poets of the Soviet Union, like Anna Akhmatova, who endured far worse then anything we've seen or hopefully that we will ever see. If they could keep writing and keep a voice alive, keep people hopeful through their poetry, then I would be ashamed to stop and to give in. It would be really self-indulgent, unacceptable, and inexcusable to walk away from it.

And the fury in my community was just staggering. The young priests in the parish were behind the message. The older priests weren't necessarily, but they all followed the orders of the cardinal and read the letter. Every Sunday, 2,000 people came to mass at that parish. The following Sunday, the attendance dropped to 200, and never recovered.

White-collar crime gets more outrageous by the second in America.

I always wrote; my first story was published in the magazine The American Girl when I was 11

The possibility of bringing white-collar criminals to justice is ever receding over the horizon.

I had wanted to write Ghost Country for a long time, but it wouldn't work.

Rule number something or other -- never tell anybody anything unless you're going to get something better in return.