I am very optimistic because I have seen the changes in my lifetime. I have seen the world change for the better. We always think that present times is terrible, that what's happening today, it was never worse, that the world is going in the most awful direction. But I think that the world that my grandchildren will have will be better than the one I had when I turned 20.

When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.

I have a very acute sense of place and time, so all of my stories are rooted in a place and a time.

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.

Giving women education, work, the ability to control their own income, inherit and own property, benefits the society. If a woman is empowered, her children and her family will be better off. If families prosper, the village prospers, and eventually so does the whole country.

The hardest thing of love is to let go.

All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them. Certain themes keep coming up: justice, loyalty, violence, death, political and social issues, freedom.