In my book tours I get to meet an audience every night. And I see that there are mostly young people, and there are a lot of more men than before, but always young, I don't get older men. As I'm getting older, my audience gets younger!

I have been a woman for 46 years and I only recently realized I can't change it and I like it.

I do not put myself in a box and say, for instance, I'm writing post-colonial literature. I don't know what I'm writing. That's the business of professors and critics. My job is to tell a story, and that's it.

I don't think that we have to look like the models in the magazines because they are 19 year olds and they have been photo shopped extensively, not but given what I, we have as the raw material, take care of it.

In the United States, the fact that you can start again gives a lot of energy and strength and youth to this country. That is why it's so powerful in many ways, and so creative.

I have travelled all over the world and one thing that amazes me is that I can communicate with people. My story may be different but emotionally we are all the same.

...when everything else fails, we communicate in the language of the stars