Happiness is pure kitch; we come into the world to suffer and learn.

Dying is not easy. It's a very hard transition.

The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses.

The world starts to exist, for Americans, when we are in conflict with a place. And then all of a sudden, Afghanistan pops up on the TV screen and it becomes a place. And it exists for three weeks and then it disappears into thin air.

You write a book and it's like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. You don't know if it will ever reach any shores. And there, you see, sometimes it falls in the hands of the right person.

My life is about ups and downs, great joys and great losses.

Writers speak for those who are kept in silence