No one wrote better about the sin of pride, the corruption of power and the redemption of love. I will miss you, Gabriel García Márquez.

I read "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diz Del Castillo, which I recommend to a lot of people. He was an eyewitness of [Hernando] Cortez's conquest of Mexico. It's at once very brutal and at times very plodding. It tells what they did everyday, so days can go by and nothing happens. Then all of the sudden they are torturing and doing all these dark things.

In some ways, I think it's the closest that we come to the truth — is in the form of fiction.

I began reading in French. I didn't read in English until high school.

Historical novels, in particular, allow us to relive the past without the neatness of history, and with all the complexity of the present.

The universe had an odd sense of fairness; it took away things one did not want to give up, and then gave things one did not ask for.

Immigration, a lexicon. You're a 'migrant' when you're very poor; 'immigrant' when you're not so poor; and 'expat' when you're rich.