Friendship is a form of love. In fact, you don't know how it starts or why. It is subject to the caprices of time. It can grow or die without a reason. It can last a lifetime.

It's enough for a small betrayal, a distancing, an affirmation of independence to provoke wrath, fear and also hatred from the adult. How many husbands and boyfriends kill the woman they say they love because she has decided to leave. It's in the news every day.

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

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.

Falling in love with a story is like falling in love with a person. It tends to occupy your life, your thoughts. You can't do anything else for a long time.

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.

What strikes me most of all in Christian culture, which is supposed to be concerned with the rights of the weakest, is the lack of regard toward animals. Maybe because they're thought to be soulless.