I remember reading an interview with a writer who said that in nonfiction if you have one lie it sort of messes it up. But in fiction the real details give you so much more credibility, because people do so much research just to write fiction. In fiction you're trying to recreate something lifelike.

Whole interaction between the storyteller and the listeners had a very powerful influence on me.

The greatest gift anyone can give to a writer is time.

Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.

People are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us. People will believe anything.

Here, though, there is nothing. Nothing at all. The sky seems empty even when I am looking at the moon and stars.

Sometimes we mask ourselves to further reveal ourselves, and it's always been connected to me with being a writer: We tell lies to tell a greater truth. The story is a mask; the characters you create are masks. That appeals to me. Aside from that, too, in the carnival the masks were beautiful, and offered a vision of Haitian creativity.