Culture does not make people. People make culture.

I was stained by failure.

One of the things that struck me when I came to the U.S. was discovering American poverty.

The best novels are those that are important without being like medicine; they have something to say, are expansive and intelligent but never forget to be entertaining and to have character and emotion at their centre.

How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.

I have many problems in my life, but I don't think that identity is one of them.

Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.