An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?

The Afghan people do not take kindly to conquerors.

Firemen have a culture of death. There are rituals, carefully constructed for the living, to process the dead.

You think of the rainforest as this incredibly abundant place of fauna and animals and flora. This great, rich wilderness. And yet it is such a biological battlefield in which everything is competing.

Like many people, I kicked around, struggled to become a writer, finally got my first full-time job around 27, 28, at 'The Hill' newspaper. They hired me as a copy editor, which was kind of funny because I'm semi-blind because I have an eye disorder.

My night stand is more like a geological structure: a bunch of books piled on the floor with its own strata.