I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

I learned to forgive myself, and that enabled me to forgive my mother as a person.

We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.

And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.

External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It's important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that's unique for yourself.

Libraries are the pride of the city.