When I began work on my first book, 'The River of Doubt,' which tells the story of Theodore Roosevelt's 1914 descent of an unmapped river in the Amazon rainforest, I thought of it as a tale of adventure, exploration and extraordinary courage.

If uncovering the truth is the greatest challenge of nonfiction writing, it is also the greatest reward.

I have always been interested in the idea of self-reinvention.

Honor in the Dust' is less about the freedom of the Philippines than the soul of the United States.

It was a very hard life. As I got older, the family was depending very much on me. My two older brothers got married, so they had their own families depending on them. I had seven people relying on me, so I worked in a grocery store.

I only wanted to get married once, so when I felt I was ready to handle it, I looked at my relationships and noticed that boyfriends get tired of girlfriends, and vice versa, but you never get tired of your friends.

It's the pursuit of love and happiness that is the driving force of the romantic novel.

I think what's dangerous about marriage is the way it can make you feel like you've got it all wrapped up. Like you're done: you've found your spouse, you've married him or her, and you don't need to think too much more about it.