Many people find it easy to imagine unseen webs of malevolent conspiracy in the world, and they are not always wrong. But there is also an innocence that conspires to hold humanity together, and it is made of people who can never fully know the good that they have done.

God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us

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

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression

The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia

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

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