Most death now happens in hospitals. It's been medicalized. It happens away from where we deal with it directly. And that's a huge change. At the beginning of the 20th century most people died at home. Death was much more common.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

In the absence of a natural disaster we are left again to our own uneasy devices.

I don't have a very clear idea of who the characters are until they start talking.

On the August night in 1933 when General Gerardo Machado, then president of Cuba, flew out of Havana into exile, he took with him five revolvers, seven bags of gold, and five friends, still in their pajamas.

You aren't sure if you're making the right decision - about anything, ever.

On the whole, I don't want to think too much about why I write what I write. If I know what I'm doing ... I can't do it.