When I select a topic, it's usually a commitment of two to three years of my life

I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season.

The problem is fundamental... It is as if a secret committee, now lost to history, has made a study of children and, having figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to declared that all of them should do it.

Curing yourself of obsessive compulsive disorder by going to a strip club is pretty strange.

Paul Farmer has helped to build amazing health care system in one of the poorest areas of Haiti. He founded Partners in Health, which serves the destitute and the sick in many parts of the world from Haiti to Boston and from Russia to Peru.

I do believe that enduring geological features are important, though I don't think I can be clear about exactly why.

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.