There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.

Eruptions of talent continue to happen in Haiti, in spite of everything.

It's amazing what happens when you stick yourself in a place and let things take their more or less natural course.

If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.

I'm a writer, not an editor, and though the editing rarely cut into my writing time, it did take away from that walking-around-thinking-about-it-when-you're-not-thinking-about-it time that I think is important for writers. When you're half-thinking about what you're working on while driving, cooking . . . just letting things sift and settle, come to you.

Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.

I really had to decide why I was writing. I had no interest in going back to law; I very briefly - for about six hours - considered going to get my MBA, but in the end, I realized that the only work I really wanted to do was write.