The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it’s less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women’s role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders.

The high point was that the people are really nice – despite the crazy politics – and I loved being there. The hardest part was knowing some of the things I was probably going to write about Texas would make those nice people very unhappy.

For a border state, I would argue that Texas is less lunatic on the subject of immigration issues than other places around it, like Arizona. They’re much more comfortable with their long-term identity as a place with a very large Hispanic population.

When the simple word processors came in, writing became crisper, less dense – just because of the way we could instantly edit on the screen. Now the ability to mash up words and pictures and links and songs and tweets is what matters. I can’t imagine what writing will be like in 2154.

Sarah Palin is an heir to the women’s movement. She has not been constrained by gender. At no point in her life has she thought, ‘I can’t do that because I’m a woman.’

I just really like Houston despite its craziness. There is a sense of energy and a kind of excitement, ‘We’re going places and God knows what’ll happen next.’ It’s very interesting. It’s very exciting.

The key to success for any woman who wants to have a really serious career and a family is to marry a guy who is going to take at least half the responsibility for the house and kids – and sometimes more than half.

Elections have to have at least a little meaning. Obama ran on income tax hikes for the wealthy. People knew they were voting for that. They ‘want’ that. And it’s good policy.

The center of our story is the tension between the yearning to create a home and the urge to get out of it. I.

I did some research once on the way people in the past imagined the year 2000. They tended to picture the things they already had getting more sophisticated – flying cars, self-cleaning windows. And the folks in the early 1900s had a wildly optimistic estimate of the future of pneumatic tubes.