Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

Schools provide safe spaces to talk about controversial issues, and literature presents characters portraying human experience in all its richness and contradictoriness.

The elasticity of imagination and compassion is what writing and reading promote.

It's like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

When we read, even if the characters are tragic or sad or disturbing, these are our brothers and sisters in the human family.

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.