Journalist

I was a theatre major and started off as a playwright.

I have an increasingly strong feeling that all of us, myself included, too many times make too many statements and don't ask enough questions.

Europeans are far more anti-war than Americans. They've had more wars, and they really just don't believe in it any more. But Americans do.

'Cod' was a great story. It let me talk about the environment without putting people to sleep.

I have an increasingly strong feeling that all of us, myself included, too many times make too many statements and don't ask enough questions.

I love seeing what people are eating. It's a great way of looking at what is similar and what is different about people. It's sociology and anthropology and history rolled into one.

For some reason, some kids have a fear of food. Some adults do, too. The best cure for that is to try a lot of different kinds of things. The more you try, the more experiences you have.

Baseball players are not specialists; they all have to do it all. That is why I, and many aficionados, dislike the American League's practice of replacing the pitcher with a designated hitter. This creates two players who do not have to do it all.

Commercial fishing is always so behind the curve of technology that they were building ships with wooden hulls and masts in the 1940s, though it also had a diesel engine, which probably was used most of the time.

The invention of gas and electric heaters has not meant the end of fireplaces. Printing did not end penmanship, television did not kill radio, movies did not kill theatre, and home videos did not kill movie theaters, although all these things were falsely predicted.

I sometimes think there is nothing really to be said about a novel but 'read the book.' I have a jaundiced view of literary critics.

I'm interested in most everything.

I get up very early and write a lot.

The environmental movement does not always have to be about stopping things. It can be about fixing problems.

People motivated by fear do not act well.

So much of what I write in fiction is based on true stories.

You read about these oyster-shucking contests: Somebody did 100 oysters in three minutes, three seconds. I'm lucky if I can open one in three minutes, three seconds.

I think I'm a bit like Ishmael in 'Moby Dick': a story teller and an observer in his own crisis.

What people eat is not well documented. Food writers prefer to focus on fashionable, expensive restaurants whose creative dishes reflect little of what most people are eating.

I started writing 'Cod' at a time when people were first beginning to take an interest in the problem of fisheries because the Grand Banks had closed.