I was surrounded by a lot of male writers of color who have this incredibly bizarre relationship to masculinity. It's like we were all mega-nerds but you would never know that if you listened to the way they talk about themselves.

- Nothing else has any efficacy, I might as well be myself. - But your yourself sucks! - It is, lamentably, all I have.

The world should always be concerned whenever a vast human rights violation occurs anywhere on the planet.

Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertibe knowledge that she will never forgive you.

This country has such little sense of itself sometimes, I'm astonished. America is one of the biggest myth-making countries, whether we're talking about how many books are published, how many movies we make. But the greatest myth of all is what America is.

but back then, in those first days, I was so alone that every day was like eating my own heart.

Dominican men are told to look at women all the time, but they're definitely not told to see them.