They say behind mountains are more mountains.

We try to keep the beautiful memories, but other things from the past creep up on us.

Even when I think of writing fiction, it's being kind of a liar, a storyteller, a weaver, and there's that sense of how much of this is your life. The story is a way you unravel your life from behind a mask.

That has always been a strength of Haiti: Beyond crisis, it has beautiful art; it has beautiful music. But people have not heard about those as much as they heard about the coups and so forth. I always hope that the people who read me will want to learn more about Haiti.

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

Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy.

I was neither doing these people nor myself a favor by showing up when my heart wasn't in it. There were not getting the real me, the whole me, the true me.