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.

A name is precious; it carries inside it a language, a history, a set of traditions, a particular way of looking at the world. Losing it meant losing my ties to all those things too.

When I was a child, I was reading books filled with people different from me, all French, all foreigners. There was a sense of disconnect between my sense of imagination and the world around me, which I don't think is common for Americans. It forces you to learn to look at the world through other people's eyes.

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.

There are writers I return to no matter what I'm working on, writers like the South African J.M. Coetzee. He has an ability to make you feel that he is writing for you alone.

Every book leaves its mark on you. It might leave you hungry for that kind of book or you may be satiated, and you're eager to read something else. It might send you in a completely different direction. I love that about reading.

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