The way we live history is not the way historians tell history. Our lives are messy and chaotic and bewildering.

I'm not a post-modernist. Especially when I do crime stories.

Journalists are often portrayed as cynical. I often think it's the opposite.

I really just choose stories that are compelling, have interesting trends and characters, and hopefully say something larger about society.

One of the nice things about 'The New Yorker' is they let you write stories that sometimes end up almost half a book.

I wish a book could reach as many people as film, but we have to be realistic about it.

I spend my life mostly disproving conspiracies.

One of the things I believe strongly in is developing institutions - legal, press, bureaucracies, academies - that are rooted in the pursuit of impartial truth. That aren't simply just bent to partisan ends or are corrupted for the powerful or for other ulterior motives.

In Brazil, the history of the interaction between blancos and indios - whites and Indians - often reads like an extended epitaph. Tribes were wiped out by disease and massacres; languages and songs were obliterated.

Most of Gingrich's moderate positions are rooted in a realpolitik that transcends ideology.