You can say that literature is about topics like love, death, and all that, but I think there is only one topic that applies to all literature and that is belonging.

Every story, every poem, every written piece is about belonging. There is a me, there is a we, there is an us, and we want to belong to it or we don't want to belong. You can read every story with this as its main focus.

If you write, and you are really alone (writing is a lonely thing), you learn to be alone without suffering. When you read, you also learn to do this. When you write, you deal with things.

The stories on standardized tests don't have one author, therefore they can never authentically be in the first person. Imagine that! Everywhere, there are these tests that have been written by multiple people.

I've been writing most of my life; it's just something I do.

We rely too much on the people we share our lives with. We hold them responsible for things they are not even aware of. We start blaming them.

Publishing my book is like giving it away. At first you start talking about it, but you are basically letting go. I won't say it's like giving birth because I haven't given birth. It's more like when your children leave home.