Because at bottom, I'm interested in fear, and in courage and cowardice and these are easier to get at through fiction, where you can enter people's heads. Votes: 11
Solitude sharpens awareness of small pleasures otherwise lost. Votes: 8
I work on quiet call nights in the hospital, on airplanes and on my sailboat when I have a bit of time - I cram it into wherever it will fit. Votes: 8
I've worked in the Inuit hamlets of the west coast of Hudson Bay since 1994. Over that time I've been very moved by both the pace of social change there - the loss of traditional ways of seeing the world, the affinity for and comfort with the land - and by the social disarray that change of this pace produces. Votes: 6
Mark Helprin and Lawrence Durrell, both of whom write fat and florid novels that appall me now but opened my eyes to the power of fiction when I was in my 20s. Votes: 5
Medicine and writing are natural companions. Votes: 4
The whole world loves a maverick and the whole world wants the maverick to achieve something nobler than simple rebellion. Votes: 4
I like a certain grandeur to a landscape, which both the Arctic and coastal BC have. I like it to be at all times clear that people aren't the dominant fact of a particular geography. Votes: 4