Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe.

Africa was the most exotic place I could conceive of - the end of the world - and I knew I would go there one day.

I do not understand how on earth you can become a writer without seeing the world.

My father thought, and now I think too, that the system of democracy is entirely based upon the system of justice. If we do not have a system of justice that people believe in, the system of democracy will fail.

I was a visual artist primarily and a writer, even from a very young age.

I pride myself in collaborating and being a creative director, and creative direction isn't putting my opinion first. It's supporting an artist so they get the most out of the project.

I don't feel when I'm writing that I'm drawing from any other writer, but of course I must be. The writers I've admired have been not so very different from myself: Evelyn Waugh, for example, that kind of crystalline prose. And I've always admired W. Somerset Maugham more than any other writer.

My parents both worked; I was a 'latchkey kid.' We were lower-middle class, and they did everything that they could to give me anything I wanted, within reason. We were not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but being an adopted kid, I think we had a different connotation. My parents tried extra hard, I think.