I've had the most untraumatic life a human being can have. But I've always been drawn to those who have had far more complicated histories.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
As a novelist, I have always been interested in how people come to terms with difficult, life-altering events.
I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.
I would like to think that as a result of not just my own experiences, but at least being empathetic and compassionate about other people's experiences and plights and tragedies, that I am affected by it and learn from it.
I've got a history in my life of difficult times.
I've had at least my share of tragedy, but I have had far more than my share of happiness.
I have lived too completely, I think. I have known every human emotion.
With all the chaos, pain and suffering in the world, the fact that my adoption of a child from who was living in an orphanage, you know, was the number one story for a week in the world. To me, that says more about our inability to focus on the real problems.
I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same time, there's a real lightheartedness about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they're not the same, ever again.
I've lived through what seems to most - and myself - many lives.
I had grown up in a humanist atmosphere, and war to me was never anything but horror, mutilation and senseless destruction, and I knew that many great and wise people felt the same way about it.