I don't know if it's a male thing, but I've always been interested in how people respond to the stresses and dangers of war, how they react under fire.

In the extremity of war, character is revealed.

When I interviewed Paul Bremer in his office, he had almost no books on his shelves. He had a couple of management books, like 'Leadership' by Rudolph Giuliani. I didn't take it as an encouraging sign.

Partly what I'm writing about is the way taboos get toppled.

Jay-Z has kind of shown that you can get to the very top without waiting, without following rules. In fact, it's better if you don't. People will admire you more if you break the rules.

We have at least learned that the offspring of presidents don't necessarily make good politicians themselves.

Politics demands certain skills honed by experience, just as journalism does, just as acting does.

In a meritocracy, actors who act well get good roles. They don't get to be journalists, too - a job that, in a meritocracy, should go to those who do journalism well.

Obama is the splendid fruit of a meritocracy.

Ambition, of course, is the politician's currency.

Inspiration is an underexamined part of political life and presidential leadership.

The idea of solving as huge and long-term a problem as inequality - which, for my money, is the biggest single problem we have here at home - just never gets serious concern from both sides.

The Olympics are never just about sports.

If giving money to a politician prejudiced my ability to think and write honestly, I wouldn't do it. Fortunately, it doesn't.

My readers know my views on politics and politicians because I make no secret of them in my comments for 'The New Yorker' and elsewhere.

Foreign policy exactly suits Obama's strong points as a leader, which turn out not to be giving the masses a clear sense of direction and hope, but instead exercising good judgment on a case-by-case basis while thinking many steps ahead of the present moment.

Often, foreign policy - which, by definition, is largely out of American control - is simply a matter of not doing the wrong thing, the unwise thing.

The best example of Obama's success in foreign policy is Iran.

Americans almost never elect presidents on the basis of foreign policy.

I spend much too much time on the Web with e-mail and surfing and reading my key sites, and a whole day can go by, and you wonder, 'What did I do today?'

I need to protect myself from my own addictive impulse.

Last year, in the year 2008, it just became normal to watch great American institutions crumble, almost dissolve like sand.

The war in Afghanistan is not of a peace with the rest of Obama's worldview. It's a holdover from the era that his election was supposed to bring to a close.

The difference between a reporter, a newspaper columnist, a paid speaker, a television personality, a radio talk show host, a blogger, a movie producer, a publicist, and a political strategist, is growing less - and not more - distinct.

I worked as a carpenter for a few years. I began writing. I wrote a book about my time in Africa - that came out in 1988 - called 'The Village of Waiting.'

Together, Apple and Walmart represent the intense separation of American life into blue and red, rich and poor, overpriced and undersold, hyperconnected and left behind.

Part of the mystique of blogs is their protean quality: They work both sides of the divide between politics and media, further blurring the already fuzzy distinctions between reporter, pundit, political operative, activist, and citizen.

The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive - that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume and so endlessly available.

A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another.

The phrase 'change the world' is tossed around Silicon Valley conversations and business plans as freely as talk of 'early-stage investing' and 'beta tests.'

Over the years, America had become more like Wal-Mart. It had gotten cheap. Prices were lower, and wages were lower. There were fewer union factory jobs and more part-time jobs as greeters.

Pay attention to other people's nightmares because they might be contagious.

By the fall of 2007, my last remaining Iraqi friend in Baghdad had left. Once he was gone, my connection to the country and the war began to thin, even as the terror diminished. I missed the improvement that came with the surge, and so, in my nervous system, I never quite registered it.

American wars in Muslim countries created some extremists and inflamed many more while producing a security vacuum that allowed them to wreak mayhem.

In its rather clinical view of death, 'True Grit' rivals the hardboiled world of 'Red Harvest'-era Dashiell Hammett and prefigures Cormac McCarthy by 20 years.

I get chills when I think that there's a statue of Phil Lynott on a street in Dublin, that people leave flowers by the statue. I love stuff like that.

I'm a very sentimental, emotional person.

I was really rudderless at one point my life. And once I started reading books, then I got the idea that maybe I could become a writer. I had a goal. And every day when I got up, there was a reason.

I'm proudly a crime writer, but it would be really inaccurate to call me a mystery writer.

I'm forever grateful to have had the opportunity to prove myself to my dad. After I took over the diner, the look in my father's eyes went from disappointment to respect.

After college, I spent a decade working the kinds of jobs that I write about - bartender, shoe salesman, kitchen man - while voraciously reading novels.

I shoot occasionally, but I'm no gun expert.

I like writing about people who spend their time trying to help others for the greater good. That's what Americans are supposed to be about, right?

Sometimes I think 'The Wire' said it all, and I might as well not write any more crime novels.

I was 15 years old in 1972, and yeah, when the 1970s broke, I was out there. Everything was kinda swirling around me - the music, women, cars, the culture.

My father's diner, the Jefferson Coffee Shop, was a simple, 27-seat affair in Washington D.C., open for breakfast and lunch - coffee and eggs in the morning, cold cuts and burgers in the afternoon.

I'm a strong believer in second chances.

'The Big Sky' is an American classic.

I make a good spaghetti sauce and can mix a nice drink.

My dad used to call me 'the dreamer.' He was right.