In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace--and because you know in your lying cheater's heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get.

I think that distance is good for some people for certain projects. I mean this is sort of a dynamic question. Some projects require more distance than others, some don't require it at all. Sometimes you need it and sometimes you don't.

If you're a status quo writer, you're considered to not be political but that's as political as if you're a progressive writer. Some politics are asked to show their passports and others aren't. In the Dominican Republique, if you're slightly progressive, people have a lot of suspicions that you're up to some sort of conspiracy, that this is some sort of plot. On the other hand, if you're conservative and mainstream, people tend to take that as a given and don't notice the politics.

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

I always individuate myself from other writers who say they would die if they couldn't write. For me, I'd die if I couldn't read.

Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one.

I spent my entire childhood feeling like a freak because I liked to read. It's just like, "Eh, no one else likes to read but me; I must be crazy!"