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The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up.

Most people don't know how underpaid and often ill-equipped urban fire departments are across North America.

I remember New York in the '80s as a place with vacant lots that would eventually give over to nature. Weeds would grow up, squirrels would move in. That entropy is gone now. It's too expensive to let a vacant lot go natural.

In one hotel, the maid who built the fire fainted in our room. Exhaustion was the cause. We talked with her later and learned that she worked 17 hours a day and makes 95 marks a month - about 50 cents.

Firefighters go where they're needed, sometimes ignoring the dangers even when no one is inside a burning building to be saved.

My wife, Daniela, and I live in an old house from 1810 with three fireplaces at the end of a dead-end dirt road on Cape Cod, so I turn the trees into firewood for us and a friend of mine sells the rest.

Property is theft.

You should always use your Nobel prize money to buy property.