We have to have a conversation about whether Obama's plan to increase spending to occupy Afghanistan helps make America a safer country, or not. I think at some point, we may decide that we don't have to have that size military and cost footprint in the country. You look at what you want to accomplish, how many soldiers you need.

This always confuses liberals, that conservatives like the military and don't like the bureaucracy. That's because the military has their guns pointed out and the bureaucracy has them pointed in.

Our job is to make people free.

If you feel the government should leave you alone, you're a Republican. If you think the job of the government is to go push people around and take things for you, then you're a Democrat.

I tend to lean toward romance, characters, and relationships when I write, so I have to add to the setting elements and world-building when I revise.

I came to the conclusion that the very best thing for Rosie, from the time she was 2 weeks old, was for us to get married.

My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.

Neutrinos alone, among all the known particles, have ethereal properties that are striking and romantic enough both to have inspired a poem by John Updike and to have sent teams of scientists deep underground for 50 years to build huge science-fiction-like contraptions to unravel their mysteries.