All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.

A myth is an old lie that people believe in. White people believe that they're better than anyone else on earth - and that's a myth.

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.

I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.

What Stieg Larsson was up to - it was the Swedish guilt over World War II. All of our neighbors had the most terrible experiences with the bad forces, but Sweden didn't. I think we use the thrillers in a different way. We never write a thriller like 'Who is the murderer?' The big question in most of our thrillers is... 'Why?'

Chechnya forms the bookends to Tolstoy's career. He began writing his first novel, 'Childhood,' while in Starogladovskaya in Northern Chechnya, and his final novel, 'Hadji Murad,' is set in the Russo-Chechen War of the 19th century.

A military childhood in the 1950s was very much informed by WWII. My brothers and I often heard stories from our dad - and from other kids - about things that had happened to their dads. We constantly played war games and, nearly every Saturday, saw a different WWII movie at the post theater.

Richard Kerry not only was a pilot in World War II, but was a civil servant. He did not come from money.