I saw the movie, he said. I know what it's about. Listen to this. When girls get to be about twelve or so - he leaned toward us - their tits bleed.

I think the suicides in my first book came from the idea of growing up in Detroit. If you grow up in a city like that you feel everything is perishing, evanescent and going away very quickly.

We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the version of the world they really believed in.

To be inclusive you must accommodate different levels of sophistication.

our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has.

Sourmelina's secret (as Aunt Zo put it): 'Lina was one of those women they named the island after.