I hope to be a good role model for my daughters.

People aren't really aware of what's happening in other places.

No one will love you more than you love your pain.

Sometimes family members will ask to be kept out of certain things that I'm writing, and I try to respect that. I'd much rather have relatives than a book.

When I meet people for the first time, I always put on my glasses because I feel like that's a little something extra between me and them. It's like the Laurence Dunbar poem "We Wear the Mask."

I would hate for people to generalize about every Haitian from something that one Haitian did, or a group of Haitians did.

Vodou is one of the religions practiced in Haiti, a rich religion for the people.