In another universe I probably came out OK, ended up with mad novias and jobs and a sea of love in which to swim, but in this world I had a brother who was dying of cancer and a long dark patch of life like a mile of black ice waiting for me up ahead.

In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.

I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try.

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

I came up under [Ronald] Reagan and under [George] Bush, and what are we to do now? We are here to fight. People can run off all they want. But for me, [Donald] Trump is already in the Dominican Republic.

People can say what they want, but historically, feminism in the Dominican Republic has been extremely strong.

The U.S. that I had imagined was nowhere near as crazy and as incredibly damaging and brutal and indifferent as the U.S. that we're currently living in. I thought I was being transgressive, apocalyptic, an out-there person. And then reality lapped me, it just lapped me.