People, it turns out, aren't a product of their own time. They're a product of the time before theirs

The training of a journalist, of working with words for thousands of hours, is extraordinarily useful for a fiction writer.

Remembering is the most overrated thing. Forgetting is far superior.

We enjoy this illusion of continuity and we call it memory. Which explains, perhaps, why our worst fear isn't the end of life, but the end of memories

Art doesn't spring from the muses alone, but from hard work.

Journalists who are devoted to strictly factual reporting take particular pleasure from satirical news outlets that have the liberty to laugh and even mock the hypocrisy that reporters and editors must simply observe without comment.

During my past career as a journalist, I relished writing obits and equally dreaded phoning relatives for the necessary facts. But to my surprise and great relief, they often wanted to talk - they wanted their recently deceased loved ones recorded in print.