In the United States, we want to believe we will never become a country of refugees.

People may be vaguely aware that there's suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan, but simply because the media are filled with American-centric versions, we still see the experiences through the American perspective. We are just completely ignorant of what might be happening to other people.

Writers from the majority can assume their audiences know what they're talking about - they don't have to explain things, whereas minority writers are expected to.

People might like to think a war is done when a cease fire is signed, but for most people who lived through a war it goes on for decades.

No one wants for their child to become a refugee. It's an awful experience.

The refugees are not only going to be a demand on the country's resources, but also the refugees raise the possibility that the countries that they're going to are themselves not as stable as the citizens would like, I think. We're all just one catastrophe away from ending up as a refugee, and we don't want to be reminded of that.

By college, I had a really grand, preposterous vision of myself as becoming a writer, but I don't think I had the discipline or the patience - or the ability or the humility. It took 20 years to acquire those things.