Sometimes it may be something I hear in the news that affects me.

If I were really fluent and born into the English language, I would probably become a greater writer.

Art is really about how you capture different things you see around you and bring them into forms and words and shapes and meaning.

Sometimes I fantasize about learning to write in Khmer. Because if I could write in Khmer, my perspective would be very different, because I'm both an outsider and insider and I see the writing in a different way. My description would be different from, say, a local writer.

The family I grew up in had three generations of widows.

I'd like to do more collaborations because collaboration creates different viewpoints.

It's really hard when you read literature in a language that's not your own. There are all these cultural references you have to be born into that particular language to get.