Love is like the rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you're not careful it will drown you.

I think all artists are looking for a subject or are sometimes unsure of their subject, but immigrant artists bring another culture to that and they bring also the place where the original culture meets the new culture.

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

Once you're involved in the work, it's really just you and the characters and the words.

Often when you're an immigrant writing in English, people think it's primarily a commercial choice. But for many of us, it's a choice that rises out of the circumstances of our lives. These are the tools I have at my disposal, based on my experiences. It's a constant debate, not just in my community but in other communities as well. Where do you belong? You're kind of one of us, but you now write in a different language.

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

This was a "bad" example for U.S. slaves. Haiti was subjected to an embargo from the United States, which, along with many other countries, refused to recognize this new republic.