The pain of losing my child was a cleansing experience. I had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential.

...memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously.

Having a point to start is important. You know that when you decide to write something it's like a commitment. It's like falling in love.

The writer of good will carries a lamp to illuminate the dark corners.

People come from internally, from other places in the United States, but also displaced people from other parts of the world. They come here. If you walk in the streets of San Francisco, you hear all the languages. You smell all the foods. You listen to the music from everywhere. There's great diversity.

Write to register history, and name each thing. Write what should not be forgotten.

Everyone has a story, the air is full of stories. The creative process is mysterious, I don't know why it is that suddenly a theme will take hold of me and refuse to leave me in peace until I investigate it and write it.