For my whole life I have dedicated myself to those who have been subjected to injustice. I've conducted investigations and written in newspapers about the homeless, the incarcerated, the sick excluded from care, about child labor, child exploitation, etc.

Something struck me in Africa, in black Africa, where polygamy is legal: the solitary woman is the rule there, from at an extremely young age, and the children are always the mother's responsibility.

I don't always understand my characters. I write to understand them better.

Above all else she mustn't think that using her body will help her attain her goal. Men use women who play seductively, and then they look down on them.

I dream of continuing to dream.

Writing is a solitary activity, it requires isolation and silence.

A painter's hand has a thirst for thieving, it steals from heaven and makes a gift to the memories of men, it feigns eternity and it delights in this pretence almost as if it had created rules of its own, more durable and more profoundly true.