The idea that America has cornered the market on anti-immigration is ridiculous. It's a global phenomenon.

Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel. This is how you lose her.

Nilda is watching the ground as though she's afraid she might fall. My heart is beating and I think, We could do anything. We could marry. We could drive off to the West Coast. We could start over. It's all possible but neither of us speaks for a long time and the moment closes and we're back in the world we've always known.

In my mind what novels do best is that they immerse us deeply into our character's world - they truly transport us deep into these spaces - but the same way you know a Hollywood movie won't end after thirty minutes, you carry in yourself the implicit contract that the novel won't throw you out of itself 'til the very end. That bulk of pages is a form of consolation, of security.

The thoughts he put in her head. Someone should’ve arrested him for it.

The world should always be concerned whenever a vast human rights violation occurs anywhere on the planet.

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.