I don't think that genius goes hand in hand with being socially inept or being a sociopath or being a misanthrope, but I do think that it is a mind that can think so differently - so beyond how one is supposed to think.

You see a virus very differently when it's caught and suspended on a slab of glass than when you're observing how it's ravaged a fellow human being.

Writing is, by its nature, interior work. So being forced to be around people is a great gift for a novelist. You get to be reminded, daily, of how people think, how they speak, how they live; the things they worry about, the things they hope for, the things they fear.

I think there are patterns of the aftermath of colonization that you see echoed in cultures and communities across the world.

Any frequent visitor to Hawaii is fixated on mapping how the islands have changed since their last visit.

Technically, of course, he was right. Socially, he was annoying us.