You can't find intimacy - you can't find home - when you're always hiding behind masks. Intimacy requires a certain level of vulnerability. It requires a certain level of you exposing your fragmented, contradictory self to someone else. You running the risk of having your core self rejected and hurt and misunderstood.

I'm having so much trouble with writing. Maybe if I help other people, it'll be easier for me.

What a surprise (we all know how tolerant the tolerant are).

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.

I never hear white writers get asked, 'Do you worry about how you represent white people?'

You're Dominican only if you do this, this, and that. And if you do this and that, you'll be accepted to a certain degree and if you don't, people will scorn you for it.

If you really want a prize, or if you really want applause, you should try to write as many books as humanly possible.