We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.

What I don't like about America is not necessarily an American thing; it's a capitalist thing. This is the Vatican of capitalism.

We, as writers, have to figure out a way to create a consciousness in language. It's crazy even to attempt to do that.

You have to suspend thinking in narratives. The moment you are conscious of yourself the gap opens up. And in this gap, stories are generated.

I'll take any life in which I can make choices and have agency, and America is not a bad place for all that.

I believe people are much more complicated than they can handle.

You can see the diversity that pieces in the anthology represent, and then the interconnections-obvious and less obvious-between various stories or between various modes of storytelling. Diversity generates need for conversation, conversation generates common interests, as well as differences. Literature, as a human project, is all about that.