Americans particularly after World War II tended to romanticize war because in World War II our cause was the cause of humanity and our soldiers brought home glory and victory and thank God that they did. But it led us to romanticize it to some extent.

The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies and that's where I found my material in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired you don't come home your best self.

My first holiday to San Francisco in 1998-99 was supposed to be a two-week vacation but I ended up staying five weeks and nearly didn't come home.

Most of the time I liked school and got good grades. In junior high though I hit a stumbling block with math - I used to come home and cry because of how frustrated I was! But after a few good teachers and a lot of perseverance I ended up loving math and even choosing it as a major when I got to college.

I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read - they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger real or pretended from abroad.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger real or pretended from abroad.

I'm not sure history has ended.

God has never in the history of mankind allowed his name to go long offended.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.