Pen names have always fascinated me, in part because I understand the professional and economic and even societal reasons to do so.

Once readers and industry professionals have you pegged down as writing a particular type of book, they are less likely to try something new from you if they decided they didn't like the first one.

I think that there's this idea - especially for male readers, but female readers as well, because we're all indoctrinated, right? - where there's this idea that if a woman is tough, it can only be in a way that is still sexy.

Watching the progression and backlash against feminism even since 1970 will give you a serious case of whiplash.

We experience problem-solving sessions as war zones, we view competing ideas as enemies, and we use problems as weapons to blame and defeat opposition forces. No wonder we can't come up with real lasting solutions!

With Vietnam, the Iraq War, so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story.

When I was a kid, my dad went to World War II. I didn't know him. I was born in '41.

United Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they're trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony.