Public justice is the greatest kind of show, my brother. Drama. Suspense. And best of all education en masse.

Afghanistan is doomed if women are barred once again from public life.

It's a very nice kind of quasi-fame being a writer, because you remain largely anonymous and you can have a private life, which I really cherish. I don't like to be in the public light all that much. I don't crave the whole fame thing at all.

You write because you have an idea in your mind that feels so genuine, so important, so true. And yet, by the time this idea passes through the different filters of your mind, and into your hand, and onto the page or computer screen - it becomes distorted, and it's been diminished.

I don't remember how I picked up 'Different Seasons,' but it was a book I read on a grave shift. I was absolutely floored by it; 'The Body,' a story about kids who go searching for a corpse in the woods, impacted me especially.

I felt on the periphery of high school culture; one of those invisible creatures that walk the campus. I think it was a lot worse for my parents.