I think my books talk about kids learning to like and respect themselves and each other. You can't write a message book you just tell the best story you know how to tell.

I discovered that in a story I could safely dream any dream hope any hope go anywhere I pleased any time I pleased fight any foe win or lose live or die. My stories created a safe experimental learning place.

I think people should look at learning about Native American history the same as visiting Washington D.C. and seeing the monuments there. It's all part of the package.

What makes this story so remarkable is that throughout my early childhood I had ongoing learning difficulties particularly in mathematics. I struggled to learn the multiplication table and no matter how hard I tried I simply couldn't remember 6 times 7 or 7 times 8.

I spent a little time in Germany as a schoolboy learning German and it's a country I knew very well spent a lot of time in. I knew the history very well. I've always wanted to do a piece of work about the post-war period of one sort or another.

I've seen a lot of the United States having stayed in so many different cities and towns for work. It's such a strange and fascinating country and instead of learning about it through a textbook I would rather discover its history and traditions and institutions through fiction and nonfiction writers.

You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa that is learning about the present through history which is what I do for a living.

We have to forget the past. History is something that even today we are paying the consequences and the future is integration. We all as a people as citizens as the leadership of both countries should be looking in that direction.

At an unprecedented time with the worst attack ever on our soil our President displayed extraordinary determination leadership and resolve when history was thrust upon him and the United States.

I knew I could not maintain that leadership in open struggle against Moscow influence. Only two Communist leaders in history ever succeeded in doing this - Tito and Mao Tse-tung.