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

Creating these messes that go from administration to administration and then you swoop in and clean them up - with that heroic Delta force - people not realizing that they were always there but doing different things than what we see them doing at the moment.

It's not easy to start over in a new place,' he said. 'Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.

We need literature because we wouldn’t fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.

They say behind mountains are more mountains.

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

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