Thomas Mallon

“I often tell people who want to write historical fiction: don't read all that much about the period you're writing about; read things from the period that you're writing about. There's a tendency to stoke up on a lot of biography and a lot of history, and not to actually get back to the original sources.”

“Bobby Kennedy's conduct toward Lyndon Johnson was childish and despicable. As the years went on, he displayed nasty, self-pitying, and messianic qualities that would have made him a dangerously authoritarian president.”

“The romantic appeal of solar sailing has ensured that its advocates consistently come from the worlds of both science fiction and science fact.”

“The cosmic game changed forever in 1992. Before then, logic told us that there had to be other planets besides the nine (if you still count poor Pluto) in our solar system, but until that year, when two astronomers detected faint, telltale radio signals in the constellation Virgo, we had no hard evidence of their existence.”

“The green appeal of solar sailing - traveling by light, once chemical propellants have done their dirty job of orbital insertion - ought to be powerful.”

“Cell phones, alas, have pretty much ruined train travel, which I used to love. I could read or even sketch notes for what I was working on.”

“I like writing dialog but don't think I'd be much good at a screenplay. I once had to write a treatment for a novel of mine - a condition of its being optioned by a movie producer - and I turned out something pretty lackluster. So my inclination would be to stay out of the way of an experienced screenwriter.”

“Letters had always defeated distance, but with the coming of e-mail, time seemed to be vanquished as well.”

“I was raised - and still consider myself to be - Catholic, though I'm non-practicing and haven't fulfilled my Easter duty since sometime during the Nixon years. I'm assailed by all kinds of stimulating doubts, but I do believe in God.”

“For almost every novel I've written, I've read the daily newspaper of the time almost as if it were my current subscription. For 'Two Moons,' which was set in 1877, I think I read just about every day of the 'Washington Evening Star' for that year. For 'Henry and Clara,' I read the 'Albany Evening Journal' of the time.”