Within the realm of fiction, it is always tempting to set one's stories in a dystopian future, where all our misgivings about state power can be shown in full force.
The challenge - and much of the fun - of writing in an established future history lies in incorporating new knowledge while remaining true to what has gone before. Expanding and enriching, not contradicting.
Lots of science fiction deals with distant times and places. Intrepid prospectors in the Asteroid Belt. Interstellar epics. Galactic empires. Trips to the remote past or future.
Barack Obama's inspirational whoosh to the presidency in 2008 was unusual. Most campaigns are less exhilarating; indeed, they are downright disappointing - until someone wins.
Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
Where there is an absence of international political leadership, civil society should step in to fill the gap, providing the energy and vision needed to move the world in a new and better direction.
We expect our leaders to be godlike. But I feel that when people try to sanctify leadership, it puts it out of the realm of regular people. And that's where the greatest leaders come from - from the people.
I might have had trouble saving France in 1946 - I didn't have television then.
My roots and Victor's are jazz, basically, but these two young fellows that we have with us come out of rock bands. And they're tremendously exciting players.
In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination.
I always lived in old buildings, and I thought about who lived here before. You'd have to be oblivious not to.
I never wore a watch. I always depend on public clocks, and stores have clocks, but that is strange.
The publishing industry has always wanted to make books as cheaply and as ephemerally as they could; it's nothing new.
As with most liberal sexual ideas, what makes the world a better place for men invariably makes it a duller and more dangerous place for women.
Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.
Male critics and men in the publishing industry want from their women writers what they want from their wives. I'm interested in presenting characters that are more challenging, threatening, complicated and unpredictable.
I live in an apartment building built in 1925, and it hasn't been heavily renovated, so I feel very much connected to that time and what went on in that place.
When I was born, some of our relatives came to our house and told my mother, 'Don't worry, next time you will have a son.'
As governor, when I visited our troops in Kuwait and Iraq, I served them Thanksgiving dinner. It was a small gesture compared to their sacrifice.
My mother loved entertaining, and I've followed suit, so we have big celebrations for New Year, Passover, Thanksgiving and birthdays.
Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday - it's a day that's American to the core and it's a day that's all about what and how we eat.
