I never have the feeling that I actually know what I'm doing or anything that I'm writing is any good.

I personally love books that make me think, so I naturally gravitate toward writing a book like that, one that's going to make someone think and make me think.

I never have the feeling that I actually know what I'm doing or anything that I'm writing is any good.

I think the past is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about, not only what is different about the past but what's the same, and what links us to the past.

I'm a history person, and I love the groundedness of that, of being able to go, "Yes! People acted like that."

I would not give up a lot of what I know about my heritage. I would not give up knowing where I came from, the good parts and the bad parts.

It occurred to me at some point that what really links us to the past is memory, and there's so much we've forgotten.