As with much of the world's problems, they become public--or much more of interest--the moment they begin to impact the West.

I think it's an aggregation of all of the small acts that are really transformative. I think a group of small acts transform the individual. And maybe when the individual transforms, collectively we transform.

Every successful artist comes from a family - parents or siblings or both - who, although equally gifted, chose not to pursue the treacherous and difficult path of the artist.

You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style.

Much of the image of the amazingness of America comes from the movies into other cultures. And it's much the same thing when you reverse it. Much of Africa is presented through poverty, through drought and war. [But] you're not presenting people, you're not presenting countries, you're not presenting complexity, and so people can't care about an amorphous mass called Africa.

What we know about who we are comes from stories. It's the agents of our imagination who really shape who we are.

People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes