I was really drawn to thinking about the women in my life. Thinking about my mother, who's a very powerful force on me. And I have these two very strong sisters who took up a lot of imaginary space in my life.

You know how it is when you get back with somebody you’ve loved. It felt better than it ever was, better than it ever could be again

The people I know who would support [Donald] Trump are keeping their mouths shut.

You can't be a human without seeing.

The anti-immigrant logic has basically saturated our world. I'm staying, and I'm fighting.

We know story collections end when they end, as well - the pages serving as a countdown - but nevertheless the standard story anthology hews closer to what makes being human so hard: it reminds you with each story how quickly everything we are, everything we call our lives can change, can be upended, can disappear. Never to return.

I think what happened to me was that I was always being taught to look, but one day I started to see. And it was because a lot of women in my life were refusing just to be looked at, to be this passive figure.