The rich are different than you and me: they have more money and they have more power.

I'm very honoured that there is a loyal following and I hope it continues

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

I believe that to create real-seeming characters, the writer must be willing to go on a voyage of self-exploration. It can be revealing and even painful to explore your own weakness, but it gives you genuine emotion. Characters in fiction come alive because of the believability of their emotional lives and that is what I strive to create.

When I tell people I was in the St. Justin Martyr parish, if they are native Chicagoans they know exactly where I was and what that was like. The Sunday before this particular march, the archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Cody, had required all of his pastors to read a letter in support of open housing and economic justice in every parish in the city.

If I were elected President, the first thing I would do would be to set up a Department of Restoring the Bill of Rights. I would have 10,000 people working there.

Organizer is kind of a grand term for what I was doing.