Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.

In a subway car, my skin would typically fall in the middle of the color spectrum. On street corners, tourists would ask me for directions. I was, in four and a half years, never an American; I was immediately a New Yorker.

Capitalism is like the law of the jungle with a few rules. There isn't another system that works for our society but left unchecked, capitalism can have a dehumanising effect.

If you have ever, sir, been through a breakup of a romantic relationship that involved great love, you will perhaps understand what I experienced. There is in such situations usually a moment of passion during which the unthinkable is said; this is followed by a sense of euphoria at finally being liberated; the world seems fresh as if seen for the first time then comes the inevitable period of doubt, the desperate and doomed backpedaling of regret; and only later, once emotions have receded, is one able to view with equanimity the journey through which one has passed.

She was struggling against a current that brought her inside herself.

There's a reason prophets perform miracles; language lacks the power to describe faith.

Only in novels can we take another human being into our head and create something jointly.