To produce that identity among young people required guinea pigs.

[Donald] Trump is taking America's dirty laundry to the center stage. Everything he does, the rest of the country already does really well: victimize immigrants, poor people, women.

Once someone gets a little escape velocity going, ain't no play in the world that will keep them from leaving.

I've been trying to write. I also spent a lot of time on different campuses, in conversation, helping other writers. That's what I do: I teach them writing.

I always wanted to read. I always thought I was going to be a historian. I would go to school and study history and then end up in law school, once, I ran out of loot trying to be a history high school teacher. But my dream was always to place myself in a situation where I was always surrounded by books.

When I was thinking about these women characters, no matter how bad a person I am - a bad writer, my limitations, my sexism, you know - the thought was, it would be useful as a writer to try to create a template for all the male writers, especially Dominican male writers, especially males of color, of how a writer can use seeing to create more nuanced representations of women.

[The biggest disappointment is] that he [Barack Obama] deported everybody and their grandmother.