I had consumed a lot of American culture, but I was not quite prepared for the reality of American poverty.

I am a strong believer in the ability of human beings to change for the better. I am a strong believer in trying to change what we are dissatisfied with.

Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.

I can write with authority only about what I know well, which means that I end up using surface details of my own life in my fiction.

That her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out

I am drawn, as a reader, to detail-drenched stories about human lives affected as much by the internal as by the external, the kind of fiction that Jane Smiley nicely describes as 'first and foremost about how individuals fit, or don't fit, into their social worlds.'

The only reason race matters is because of racism.