If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.

To start with, for example this year, 2004, is the bicentennial of Haitian independence.

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

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

I love the process of cracking the spine for the first time and slowly sinking into a book. That will soon seem old-fashioned, I'm sure, like the time of illuminated manuscripts.

America's relationship with Haiti has always been very complicated. I often say to people, "Before we came to America, America came to us in the form of the American occupation from 1915 to 1934."

...women, brave as stars at dawn