“[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy...Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.”

American-Israeli novelist and journalist

Mark Helprin is an American-Israeli novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, and former policeman. He is known for fiction that moves across different genres and styles, and for a public voice that stands apart from literary fashions. Helprin has said that he belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend. Beyond his novels and journalism, he has served as Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, been a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.