Life was neither something you defended by hiding nor surrendered calmly on other people's terms, but something you lived bravely, out in the open, and that if you had to lose it, you should lose it on your own terms.

Or even the state of Florida, where they are prepared to execute children. Umm, well, you hope that at least that there is something there to be claimed.

I am very timid about speaking for the collective. I can say what I see, I can say what I've heard, I can say what I feel, but I can't speak for - no one can speak for - 10 million people, and it takes away something from them if you make yourself their voice.

There [Haiti] were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, "Cut their heads off, burn their houses."

People often think of Haiti as a place where you're not supposed to have any joy. I wanted to show that this is a place with joy.

The way the media cycle works, the way the news works, and the way people's attention span works, is that we only learn that people exist when there is crisis.

No, women like you don't write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the rebelliousness.