Magical realism as a declaration in the text is usually when someone can't speak and then they must be magically reinvigorated in some way.

My grandfather is Portuguese. He betrayed what was expected of him and married my grandmother of African descent on my father's side.

I love the fact that I can go to a museum now that tells me I'm in the postmodern age.

If you die without agency as a child, but you have agency in your body [in the novel], how is it to be enacted unless it is being reimagined by a writer?

Eliot said that "genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood." What he meant by that is, the emotional understanding comes before you understand the argument that follows later in the text.

I can't stay engaged for years with a book unless it has feelings. It can't be an idea for me - it has to be a felt thing.

People who are suffering have to visualize ways out of tragedy to actually get out of it.