I was studying with Peter Carey, Colum McCann; but also, my fellow students were really critical readers for me.

I began studying ribosomes as a postdoctoral fellow in Peter Moore's laboratory in 1978.

The Cold War provided justification for a larger peacetime military, since we were never really at peace, or so the argument went.

I think that just because you've been through an experience doesn't make you the ultimate arbiter of what it means. We figure things out; we work things out through the help of other people who can engage with us but also be intelligently critical.

I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war.

We have a tendency to think of war as this quasi-mystical thing, and that interpretation flattens the experience - by using different perspectives, I wanted to open a place for readers to compare and contrast, to make judgments, to engage.