Most writers who leave their country physically have already left it mentally and emotionally.

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

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

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.

I think to be in exile is a curse, and you need to turn it into a blessing. Youve been thrown into exile to die, really, to silence you so that your voice cannot come home. And so my whole life has been dedicated to saying, I will not be silenced.

Those who have never suffered the iniquities of exile cannot possibly understand the significance, the gravitas, of a mattress.

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