We live in the age of the refugee, the age of the exile.

Torture presupposes, it requires, it craves the abrogation of our capacity to imagine others suffering, dehumanizing them so much that their pain is not our pain. It demands this of the torturer, placing the victim outside and beyond any form of compassion or empathy, but also demands of everyone else the same distancing, the same numbness.

This America has been the country of greed rather than the country of need.

I'm the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it's the best of both possible worlds.

Responsibility without power, the fate of the secretary through the ages.

I'm a mongrel in the sense that I'm Spanish, English, Latino, Jewish, north, south - all these things are mixed in me.

There's a tendency, especially among revolutionaries, to only show the good side of yourself and then when you come to power, the bad side comes out.