Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.

Chicago is the Great American City, and it was really great to live there during a time of economic expansion and opportunity and growth. I felt like I was living at the center of the world. Unlike New York, no one expects you to be a professional writer.

I am still bowled over by this great young adult novel by David Levithan called 'Every Day,' which is about a character with no gender or body who wakes up every day in the body of a different person. It's a really impressive execution of a really great premise.

Every time I try to set something in Chicago, I get intimidated by 'Augie March.' It's easy to set something in Indianapolis - we don't have 'Augie March' here. But I love writing about Chicago, and I love being there and imagining lives in Chicago. I hope to set something there in the future, but it's intimidating.

Without education, we are weaker economically. Without economic power, we are weaker in terms of national security. No great military power has ever remained so without great economic power.

I had a Jesuit education, and I consider acting and the theater as kind of a calling - a vocation.

The want of education and moral training is the only real barrier that exists between the different classes of men.

At the time I wrote 'Forever,' I had a 14-year-old daughter, and she was reading a lot of books about young love.