I think that my work is my attempt, I suppose, is to try and become a piece of connective tissue. I'm trying to communicate with people here and in America - in rich countries - about what I see on the ground in badly affected areas

Once you're a mom, you've been split into two people. It's like Peter Pan and his shadow.

Children are much more understanding of the suddenness and arbitrariness of death than we are. The old fairy tales contain a lot of that, and we've stolen from them, just as they stole from Greek myth, which has that same mixture of pre-Christian chaos.

Is love a fancy or a feeling.... or a Ferrars?

I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.

If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.

We all need somewhere where we feel safe