Life's hard in Haiti right now. And the hardest thing is that the future does not lie with one person.

AIDS was something that was put upon us [as haitians], and we were immediately identified with it. That is unfair. That is unjust. I always say, "We are all people living with AIDS." It's not like you can avoid it. It's part of our world.

Anger is a wasted emotion.

To start with, for example this year, 2004, is the bicentennial of Haitian independence.

Toni Cade Bambara said: “Writing is the way I participate in the struggle.”

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.

People aren't really aware of what's happening in other places.