When I Travel, I Feel

When People, Particularly Young People And Especially Young Men, Can't Imagine Themselves As Heroes In Narratives That They Construct For Themselves, They Look To Be Heroes In Some Other Way. So Young Men In America Of, Let's Say, Muslim Background, Only A Tiny, Tiny Minority - So Small As To Be Almost Zero - Are Likely To Ever Commit Terrorist Acts.

As A Writer, I Am Constantly Aware That I Take My Life In My Hands With Everything I Do And Say. It's Just A Fact Of Life. For Me It Always Has Been.

I Am Not Much Of A Researcher As A Novelist; I Write Mainly From Experience.

We Can Open Up Our Computers And Skype With Someone, And We See Them. It's Like Looking Through A Window. And We Can Surf The Internet Through Our Phones, And It's Like Our Consciousness Is Far Away. Or We Can Step Through A Airplane Door And Be In Another Continent A Few Hours Away. So Technology Feels, To Me, Like The Doors Sort Of Already Exist, At Least Emotionally.

I Did Not Grow Up In Poverty. But I Did Grow Up With A Poor Boy's Sense Of Longing, In My Case Not For What My Family Had Never Had, But For What We Had Had And Lost.