I always want to write something better than the last book.

The goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water. Comma.

That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people.

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read.

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.

My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember.

In a very basic way, a prominent landmark such as Mt. Holyoke tells you where you are. They let you know that you're not the first person in a place