I believe, in my better moments, that there is a plan and things go not the way we want them to but the way they should.

You see an absolutely brilliant film later, as an adult, and you walk out thinking about what to have for dinner. Whereas something like Jaws winds up having a huge effect on me. If only my parents had been taking me to Kurosawa films when I was eight, but no.

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

We are taught to be suspicious, especially of anyone who might not look like us or share our beliefs.

No one should have to go back to the place where she had once been a girl.

Carmen prayed hard. She prayed while standing near the priest in hopes it would give her request extra credibility. What she prayed for was nothing. She prayed that God would look on them and see the beauty of their existence and leave them alone.

I saw that my best work was my most personal work, which is odd, because my fiction is very far afield and has nothing to do with my life.