Reading is a way to take in the difficult situations and understand them. The whole point of reading a book in class is to have discussion about what these situations are like.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

There is no end to what can be said about the world

I grew up in a dictatorship, where you couldn't talk about difficult situations - there was this culture of silence. We would run into a problem and have no one to talk to.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

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

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.