There's a tendency when we write history to do it with the power of hindsight and then assume almost god-like knowledge that nobody living through history has.

To be honest, I used to always procrastinate when I write. I mean, I love writing, but I hate it.

I love the magic of stories and the power of stories.

Firemen have a culture of death. There are rituals, carefully constructed for the living, to process the dead.

In Brazil, the history of the interaction between blancos and indios - whites and Indians - often reads like an extended epitaph. Tribes were wiped out by disease and massacres; languages and songs were obliterated.

I was a schoolteacher; I taught seventh and eighth grade, and I tried to write fiction on the side.