I'm not saying Cubans don't deserve asylum, but if it is a national security issue, there are people who are coming from Cuba on hijacked airplanes. Why isn't that a national security issue?

And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934.

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

I think it's hard to write a book about happiness because fiction requires tension and complication.

For the majority of the people it is a difficult place to live. That's a reality that we can't ignore. But there is also great beauty to it.

I think novels just really show us the deepest parts of people's hearts, and you cannot walk away anymore and say, "I don't know."

Anger is a wasted emotion.